Absence Makes the Legend Stronger
by dcdreamin
Summary: In the wake of an ill-fated mission following Cammie's college graduation, Zach and Cammie must figure out how to build a life together. Will these growing pains lead to a stronger relationship, or the end of Zammie as we know it? A post-UWS Zammie story embracing all parts of the Gallagher Girls series. Many Spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

My heart pounded in my ears as I ran into the alley as fast as I could. My mind raced, counting steps, estimating the speed of the guards, following Zach's probable location based on the 5:42 minute mile I knew he was capable of running.

It was close. Maybe too close.

I felt one of the men gaining on my right, so I swung my arm harder until my elbow connected with his face, and I heard his body ricochet off the brick wall.

I pushed faster, straining every muscle with the hope of making our rendezvous just an instant sooner.

Then I saw him. His profile was barely visible in the darkness, but I could have recognized the slope of Zach's shoulders, and that determined set to his jaw absolutely anywhere.

I didn't stop. I ran past Zach, palming the drive into his pocket. He didn't hesitate - not even a momentary hitch in his gait- but I knew it was safe.

My assailants weren't expecting another agent. Zach clothes-lined one man as he ran past, and casually flung another over his shoulder, using the man's own weight against him. And then he was gone, off into the night.

12 minutes and 42 seconds. That's how long I had to make it back to the extraction point. The last of the men came at me, but I was ready, smashing my foot into his chest in a classic Sclarsky maneuver. He fell backwards, and I could have run, but I hadn't finished yet. The mission plan said I was to incapacitate all the guards, so there would be no difficulties at the extraction point.

I used the moment to slap a Napotine patch on the man I'd just kicked, and sent a roundhouse flying toward the man I'd elbowed into the wall earlier. Apparently he'd taken it personally.

He ducked my kick, and his fingers clenched around my throat as he slammed my back into the brick wall. From the ground, I heard the Napotine-d guard mumble in Arabic "no. . .kill. . .drive. . ."

I felt the man holding me roll his eyes. "People are easy to search when they're dead," he joked back. It sounded prettier in Arabic.

I tried to remember that as a Gallagher Girl, breathing is sometimes optional.

"No," Napotine guard mumbled. "Boy."

My guard sighed, reached behind his back with his spare arm, and fired his gun in the distance. As he pulled the trigger, I smashed my forehead into his nose as hard as I could.

He dropped me, and I followed with another blow from under his chin. He fell, and I followed the punch with another Napotine patch. Then I ran toward Zach.

Zach was curled into a ball on the ground, but when I grabbed his shoulders, he screamed. My hand came away covered in his blood.

"Flesh wound," he winced. "We have to go."

My blow had knocked the guard off balance. He'd hit Zach in the shoulder. He'd meant to hit Zach in the chest. I didn't dare let myself think about it.

"10 minutes and 38 seconds," I rattled off. "Can you make it?"

He nodded, and I hauled him to his feet.

Then we raced off into the night like nothing had happened.

Except that it had.

* * *

 **AN: Hello, everyone, I'm back! Thanks so much to everyone who enjoyed Til Death Do Us Part with me last summer. Here's a new story I was inspired to write while filling in Zach and Cammie's history. I'm 98% finished with this, and really excited to share it with all of you. I hope you enjoy reading it. After these first four chapters, I'll be updating every Sunday (US).**


	2. Chapter 2

Something was wrong. Zach could feel it, as they sat in silence on the chopper, and then slept on the CIA's jet. It was the set of her jaw, the tension in her shoulders, her reflexively clenched fists. Cammie even looked angry when she wasn't conscious.

Zach didn't understand what the big deal was. They'd had plenty of close calls in the past; it was just the nature of their business. Cammie knew that better than anyone.

Ok, so he'd strayed from the mission plan, but what kind of operative didn't need to make a snap decision in the field once in a while. Yes, he was supposed to keep running to the extraction point. But Cammie had been in trouble, so he'd circled back. So what if he'd been shot? Big deal. 20 minutes of attention at the joint forces med station in Turkey, and the bullet was just another scar with another story. People shot at Zach all the time. Once in a while, they were bound to get lucky.

But by the time they filled out their mission reports, Zach knew with certainty that they'd fight the moment they got home. Cammie was too calm, and Zach knew from personal experience that was never a good thing. Cammie wasn't really the quiet type. Sure, she could be shy sometimes, but never with him. She'd always been comfortable and open with him.

No, Cammie was angry. She'd just temporarily buried her anger under ten years of spycraft.

And she was shutting him out. Cammie had been silent as she watched him get stitches in Turkey, and she'd been just as quiet she filled out her mission paperwork.

Zach knew it was complicated. He knew that every time he put himself in danger, Cammie questioned the decision she'd made to build her life with another spy. After what happened with her father, it was understandable. Cammie had spent years watching her mother grieve for a man she didn't even really know was dead. At least Zach had never known his father, couldn't miss something he'd never had.

And he hadn't grieved for Catherine. He'd just felt numb. And relieved.

It was different with Cammie. Cammie had loved her father. And Cammie loved him. Cammie wanted him safe.

But that wasn't realistic. Not with the life they'd both chosen.

Zach closed his eyes and settled his mind, the same way he would before a mission. He'd need it - an all out fight with Cammie was actually worse than facing down a battalion of terrorists with machine guns. The woman could shoot daggers with her eyes, and her words that sunk deeper than any bullet. It was a talent of sorts, and Zach had always admired her ferocity. He just preferred when she turned it loose on someone else.


	3. Chapter 3

"What's the matter, Gallagher Girl?" Zach teased. "Our mission was a success."

"You should be dead," I snapped. I fought to suppress my fear, and instead anger dripped into my words.

"I'm not," Zach smirked. Zach's expression was calm, but I knew him far too well to believe it. He'd lost a lot of blood on our way to the chopper, and by the time we reached Turkey, Zach was alarmingly pale. Zach wanted me to think he was invincible. But I knew the truth. Even the best spies could get hurt. Even the best spies didn't always come home.

I turned on Zach, fixing him with my coldest stare. "What about next time?"

"Occupational hazard," he shrugged.

"No," I challenged. "You make bad decisions when you're around me. You don't calculate with a clear head. You get distracted; you worry about my safety instead of yours."

"Cam, I love you..." Zach started, but I cut him off.

"Not out there," I snapped. "Out there, it's a liability. You treat me differently. You get in the way of me doing my job."

Zach closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he answered.

"Cam, that's not fair."

"Really?" I challenged. "Tell me about the last time you put your life in imminent danger to protect Bex?"

"Bex is different," Zach argued. "Bex is ..."

"Better than me?" I challenged. "Smarter? Stronger? More experienced? Better trained?" I knew I was crossing a line as I continued to hurl my words at him, but I couldn't stop myself. "Tell me, Zach, what makes Bex more qualified to be in the field than me?"

Zach didn't dare answer. Instead, he looked at me like I'd just punched him in the stomach. With a brick. Zach's shoulders tensed, waiting for my next attack. His eyes closed me out, as if I were a stranger.

"Yeah," I concluded. "That's what I thought."

The air felt heavy between us, and I knew I'd gone too far. But I had to make sure this never happened again. I had to make sure Zach was safe.

The seconds ticked by. Ten. Twenty. Twenty-eight. I counted them silently in my head, waiting for Zach to speak, but he didn't. He just stared through me, as if I wasn't even there.

"We can't work together anymore," I said quietly, finally. "I'm not going to lose you like this."

Zach froze for a moment more, as if waiting to be sure I had finished. When he was satisfied, he walked slowly toward me and placed his hands on my shoulders. I tried not to wince as his fingers brushed the bruises around my neck. He studied me in silence, but his face didn't give anything away. Then he sighed, and gently kissed my forehead.

"I think I should sleep on the couch tonight," he said softly.

"Okay." The word slipped out before I could catch it, before I could apologize, before I could disagree.

"Okay," Zach whispered in response. "Sleep tight, Gallagher Girl."

Numbly, I turned and walked into our bedroom. I changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth in a haze. Not sleeping for three consecutive days will, eventually, catch up with you.

I slept, more deeply than I expected. When I woke, the apartment was quiet. Far too quiet.

I rushed to the kitchen, and my heart caught in my throat as I took in the empty couch, subconsciously noted the carefully folded blanket and pillow propped on the seat.

And then I saw it. A single yellow post-it note carefully placed in the center of the kitchen counter.

"Have a deep-cover op. Don't know when I'll be back. Love you. -Z"


	4. Chapter 4

Cammie was wrong. Sure, Zach had almost died, but this wasn't the first time that had happened. Zach was an international spy. He encountered dangerous people every day. He specialized in making them comfortable, extracting their secrets, using them to his advantage. Of course, that was bound to backfire occasionally. Zach was constantly in danger. Frankly, he'd had so many close calls at this point, that he honestly wasn't even sure he could die.

And Cammie was exaggerating. He'd been in tight places on missions with other partners too. Sure, one of his partners had turned out to be a double agent, so that might have been contributory. And to be fair, Bex did make a habit of throwing him to the wolves every time he ran into her undercover, which was fairly often. Still, Zach was sure, Cammie was exaggerating.

What was he supposed to do, leave her fighting for her life in that alley and run toward safety with the drive? It was utterly ridiculous. Zach would never abandon a partner in that fashion. Not Bex, not Grant, and certainly not Cammie.

Zach took a deep breath and focused on keeping his hands from shaking. He'd seen Cammie angry a number of times over the years, but even he had never seen her quite like this. Not even the time she somehow got it into her head that he was dating Bex.

Zach couldn't sleep. As he lay on the couch, studying the cracks in their early 1850's plaster ceiling, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had to move. To run, to leave, and push this moment away so that he wouldn't see the foundation of their relationship shaking. So that he wouldn't have to bear witness as another great castle crumbled to the ground.

Cammie's words echoed in his head, sharp and biting. _Tell me, Zach. What makes Bex more qualified to be in the field than me?_

Zach had stood there like an idiot, but not because he didn't know the answer. No, that wasn't it at all. The answer was too easy, too obvious, but it never made it past Zach's lips.

He should have just told her. He should have looked Cammie dead in the eyes and said calmly, " _Bex_ isn't the love of my life."

But he hadn't. And he wasn't even sure it would have mattered if he had.

Zach had to go, so he called his father. If there was anyone in the world who would understand his need to dive into work and hide from his personal life for a while, it would be Edward Townsend.

Townsend answered the burner phone on the first ring, clearly expecting Zach to advise him of some emergency.

"I need an assignment," Zach said calmly. He didn't offer an explanation, and Townsend didn't ask any questions.

There was silence for a moment, followed by one of Townsend's characteristic huffs.

The phone clicked off.

It was a deep cover operation in Columbia. A pharmaceutical drug ring where Grant was working undercover as the crew's muscle. Townsend needed an inside man to market the operation, and to better control which people ended up in Grant's way.

There wasn't a clock. Zach could be gone for weeks or years, and there was just no way of knowing. In short, it was perfect.

Zach hadn't been on a deep-cover operation before, unless you counted the decade he'd feigned allegiance to the Circle. But this was exactly the mission he needed. Maybe Townsend had read their mission report and extrapolated. Maybe he'd had some kind of fatherly instinct when Zach called him in the middle of the night. Maybe it was just coincidence, but Zach was grateful nonetheless.

Zach peaked into the bedroom, where Cammie lay, asleep. Her rest was unusually peaceful, without any of the tossing and turning and nightmares Zach had grown to expect. She must have been truly exhausted.

Zach felt a pang of guilt as he studied her. He knew she would take his leaving hard. They'd fought, and he knew it wasn't fair for him to leave this way. So he packed quickly and quietly, a skill he'd perfected long ago, careful not to wake Cammie.

He knew should say goodbye. With no way of knowing when or if he'd return, it wasn't right for him to simply walk off into the night. He could wake her, but Zach knew their unresolved fight would hover between them, complicating everything. And Zach had nothing to say about that.

How could Cammie expect him not to care? To just turn off his feelings for her the moment he stepped into the field. It was absurd. They were a team. They had always been a team. And he loved her. He loved her with every cell in his body, as if she'd been wound into his DNA, a simple fact of his existence.

How could she expect Zach to send her off into the world alone? Or worse yet, with another partner. No one would look out for her the way he did. No one else would understand how important it was that she live. Anything could happen to her.

Didn't she know? Didn't she know how he'd almost gone mad the last time she'd disappeared on her own? Didn't she know how he held himself responsible for everything she'd endured when she wasn't by his side?

There was nothing to say. He had to go.

Besides, wasn't this what Cammie wanted? The freedom to put herself in unspeakable danger without his input? He could be gone for months or years, and Zach knew his absence wouldn't stop Cammie from working. He was doing the right thing. He was stepping aside, and offering Cammie the freedom she wanted.

But he couldn't stay and watch her get hurt again. Cammie was an adult, and a talented, capable spy. Despite her allegations, Zach knew she was as qualified as anyone else out there. Cammie was free to make her own choices. But she couldn't force him to witness the consequences.

 _Not like this_ , a voice inside him shouted, but he silenced it. He'd made up his mind. It was the only way.

" _Have a deep-cover op. Don't know when I'll be back. –Z"_

He scrawled the words onto a post-it note and placed it on the counter. He didn't want her to panic. The rest of his actions may have been underhanded, but he wasn't leaving her, not really, and she should know that.

Zach collected his bag, and folded the blanket on the couch with precise deliberate movements. He paused at the door. He hesitated for a moment. He pushed open the door and placed his bags in the hallway. But at the last moment something called him back.

So he walked to the counter and scrawled two additional words on the note.

 _Love you._

Then he picked up his bags, locked the door behind him, and set off into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

The Helicopter blades sliced through the muggy morning air, as I ran over the mission plan in my head. Anything to keep myself from really thinking.

I'd waited three weeks to see if Zach would return. Every morning I checked my dead letter email accounts, watched the news, set motion sensors outside our door. Every day I rushed home from my Master's classes and held my breath as I opened the door. But eventually I had to accept the truth - no matter how I tried to will Zach back to me, he wasn't coming home any time soon.

Townsend had confirmed that Zach was in deep-cover. It was the only detail I'd gotten. It could have been an emergency mission. It could have been a coincidence. But I was 97.3% sure that wasn't the case. I was 97.3% sure Zach had run.

Eventually, I couldn't make up any more excuses to stay out of the field. Eventually, I had to take an Assignment.

I hadn't gone out alone in years, not since sophomore year of college, when I'd accepted a solo tail mission. Zach had been out of the country on business when the mission came up. If he'd been in DC, we surely would have fought about it.

Despite our argument, I couldn't entirely blame Zach for being overprotective. After all, the first time I went out alone, I'd been captured, tortured, brainwashed, and had tried to kill myself. It was a lot.

But it had been five years. I had learned so much since then.

It wasn't fair for Zach to measure my abilities based on the most embarrassing mistake of my career.

I'd been seventeen, and impulsive, and I hadn't thought things through. I'd struck out on my own, in a misguided attempt to keep all the people I loved safe. I hadn't considered what would happen when they learned about my disappearance.

I hadn't considered that the full might of the CIA would rain down, looking for the teenage girl who'd disappeared in plain sight. Or that the circle had moles everywhere, and they'd know I was gone the moment I left.

I definitely didn't consider that by disappearing I was actually placing my friends and family in even greater danger. That instead of sitting at home, waiting for my return, they would join the search, matching my enemies stride for stride in a frantic scavenge hunt.

And then I'd been captured. I'd been tortured. I'd been led to my father's grave. I'd given up at least some of the information he had died to protect.

I hadn't come home victorious. Instead I'd come home broken and scarred and not even entirely sure who I was. I'd lost five months of my life I would never fully recover.

I wanted to be so angry at Zach for leaving, but I wasn't. Finding his note that morning had hurt so badly. And yet I couldn't find it in my heart to hate him for it. Because I knew, deep down, that I might have done the same thing. That I _had_ done the same thing. And even though I'd regretted leaving for almost five years, I also remembered how, at the time, it felt like the only option. The instinct to run was ingrained in me just as deeply as it was in Zach.

But that didn't change the fact that I missed Zach terribly. That every morning, I held my eyes closed for an extra eight seconds and tried to imagine his measured breathing beside me. That every time I opened the door to our apartment, my heart raced at the thought that he might be waiting inside. That I ached for his touch, his smell, his laugh. That no one had called me "Gallagher Girl" in more than three weeks.

He didn't leave _you_ , I reminded myself. He just left. I'd been a professional liar since I was 12, but as the days passed, even I found it harder to believe myself.

What if Zach really had left _me_? And what if I wasn't as good a spy without him? What if I wasn't as good a _person_?

I closed my eyes and silenced my thoughts. I was a Gallagher Girl. A legacy, even. I'd been born to do this, and I could do it perfectly fine without Zach. And no matter what's going on in her personal life, a Gallagher Girl does _not_ let her boy drama interfere with a mission.

I closed my eyes and calmed my nerves as my helicopter slowly descended into the Urubama River region of Peru. I could already feel my hair beginning to stick to my face in the humidity. I slid my bucket hat onto my head, and channeled my inner hiker. Obviously I'd spent the day hiking to Maccu Piccu. I definitely hadn't flown in earlier today on an unmarked government jet to gather intelligence about the credibility of certain military coup rumors that had been circulating.

My brain was still and relaxed, but I wondered, just for a moment, where Zach was. I knew trying to contact him would violate every deep-cover rule in existence. Deep-cover was dangerous, more so than average, and any communication could become a liability. One phone call at the wrong moment could be the difference between life and death.

But I wanted so badly to apologize. I'd gone too far. There had to be a middle ground between us, and I should have found it. I knew that. But Zach had left, before I even had the opportunity to try.

As the chopper touched down, I pushed Zach to the back of my mind. He'd left a note. He'd said he loved me. He could be back in a week or a month or a year, and I would lose my mind if I concentrated on our fight, on the unsettled tension between us. It was better to focus, to work, to let my instincts take over. To lose myself in strategy and adrenaline.

Zach would come home, and when he did, I'd be waiting. I checked my email accounts one more time. Then I stepped out of the chopper.


	6. Chapter 6

Townsend hadn't been joking about deep cover. Zach had been inside the Circle of Cavan for the first sixteen years of his life, but this crew left the Circle in the dust. When Grant brought him in, he'd almost been shot on the spot. It had taken a lot of Grant's smooth talking to save his life, and nearly a month of Zach's faithful service to even begin earning their trust.

It was instantly clear to Zach that this was going to take a while. The Doctors, as they called themselves, were mistrustful at best and murderous at worst, and Zach knew it could be months or years before he and Grant could orchestrate the kind of slip-up they needed to bring them into US jurisdiction.

As the weeks passed, Zach felt increasingly guilty about the way he'd left Cammie. He should have apologized. She was right. He _could_ have died in that alley in Pakistan.

He probably should have died.

It had been a month. Surely Cammie was out in the field again by now. In all likelihood, she'd taken an assignment the day after he left. Cammie understood as well as anyone the virtue of giving in to your instincts and tuning out everything else.

Zach hated the thought, but he also knew that no one could stand in Cammie's way once she'd set her mind to something. And as much as he wanted to, Zach knew he never could have stopped her. All he could do was pray that she'd be alright.

It took all of Zach's self-control not to call Cammie and apologize. But with the Doctors watching his every move, Zach knew one phone call could be the difference between life and death. If anyone found out who Zach really was, he would never make it home to Cammie. And that outcome was simply unacceptable.

Zach checked his dead letter email accounts. It had become a reflex, his only safe point of contact with the clandestine community. They were empty still, thank God. In their business, no news was always good news.

Zach wished they'd established an emergency communication system, the way Cammie's mother had with her classified ads. Instead, Zach was forced to rely on official channels, when he could get them, and the silence of his encrypted CIA inbox was less than comforting. Just how bad did news have to be before it would be shared? Zach didn't know, and he hated not knowing.

Zach took a deep breath and tried to settle his mind. He'd left a note. He'd said he loved her. Maybe this distance would ultimately be good for them. Sure, it had started as a fight, but he and Cammie had been almost inseparable for the last five years. They'd actually become a bit co-dependent. Maybe they both needed some space. Maybe this wasn't the worst idea Zach had ever acted on.

Zach laughed internally. Who was he kidding? Definitely not himself.

Zach unconsciously refreshed his e-mail, and his heart stopped for a moment when he found a CIA bulletin in one of his accounts. He skimmed the e-mail as quickly as possible, replacing the innocuous words with their matching code phrases, and breathed a guilty sigh of relief when he read the name Tina Walters.

"Who died?" Grant called from across the room, serenely, as if the death of their colleagues was news that was so common it wasn't really noteworthy anymore.

"No one," Zach shook his head, irritated. Grant's cavalier nature could wear on him. "Tina Walters is missing."

"Is that the girl with all the gossip? From Gallagher?" Grant asked, as if the government hadn't trained him, since the age of 12, to retain large quantities of information. As if he hadn't gone on at least two dates with Tina in Bratislava last year.

Zach nodded.

"Damn, she was a babe."

Zach rolled his eyes.

"What?" Grant challenged. "You don't think Tina Walters was hot?" He corrected himself. "Is hot? I bet she's fine, she's probably being held hostage by the Kardashians or something."

Zach ignored him.

"Oh, I forgot," Grant teased. "You're still in love with your high school girlfriend. No other woman in the world can hold a candle to Cammie Morgan."

"You got that right at least," Zach mumbled.

"You were terrified it was her." Grant said it as a statement, not a question. "Hence the face."

Zach didn't bother trying to deny it.

"Dude, let it go." Grant clapped a hand on Zach's shoulder, harder than necessary. "We're going to be here a long time. You can't spend every minute walking on eggshells and worrying that she's going to hurt herself."

Grant studied Zach carefully. "Let's go out tonight. Just you and me. Let's hit a club and meet some Columbian ladies to take your mind off Cammie."

Zach pushed down the sudden urge to punch grant in the face, and mumbled tightly, "Not happening."

"Zachary Goode, _lighten up_ ," Grant goaded. "You'll at least come along and be my wingman. You may be practically married, but Bad Boy Grant is still available, and the Columbian ladies dig it."

Zach rolled his eyes, and hauled himself off the couch. If he didn't, he had no doubt Grant would force him to get up. Grant met his eyes, and his expression softened. Zach knew that, under all his bluster, Grant really was a good guy.

"Besides," Grant offered quietly. "That girl could single-handedly kick both our asses. She's going to be just fine without you."

* * *

 **Thanks so much for joining me this week! Come back next Sunday for the next installment. Hope you're enjoying this, I love writing for you. Feel free to leave me your thoughts and comments!**


	7. Chapter 7

There was a familiar figure on my couch when I returned home, but not the one I was hoping to see.

The last four years had added premature lines to my face, but I swear they only made Bex more compelling. Her wrinkle-free skin glowed. Her hair was glossy and wild in a way that should have been impossible for someone who was on the road so often that she didn't even have her own apartment anymore.

She hugged me, and gestured to the pizza on the counter. "It's still warm if you want it."

Leave it to Bex to break into my apartment, make herself at home, and order a pizza.

"How long have you been here?" I asked. I sized up my apartment and tried to estimate based on the chaotic mess that followed Bex wherever she went.

"Three days, five hours and . . . 23ish minutes," Bex rattled off. "And no, Zach hasn't been back."

She must have read the note I'd left on the counter, assuring Zach I'd be home soon, and promising to work things out.

I tried to hide my disappointment, but it wasn't very convincing.

"He's going to be gone a while, Cam," Bex offered. Bex had been heading the MI6/CIA joint task force for the last year, and was usually privy to much more information than I was. "I'm pretty sure he's with Grant on a deep-cover op."

"I know," I nodded. The secret to extracting sensitive information from Bex was to act like you knew it already.

But Bex was concerned with information of a different nature.

"What did you fight about?" she asked casually.

I sighed. The tone of my note had not been subtle.

"Pakistan," I answered, rolling my eyes. Bex's gaze sized me up and demanded more information. I didn't fight it. "Zach makes bad decisions when we're in the field together. I told him we couldn't be partners anymore."

Bex considered for a moment, and took another slice of pizza.

"You're not wrong," she conceded. "But I bet he didn't take that well."

"That's an understatement."

"Let me guess," she teased. "He slipped out without saying goodbye, and left you a note saying he was heading off to do some dangerous thing?"

My head snapped to look at Bex. She cackled, but her eyes didn't laugh.

"Well, now you know how it feels."

"You're never going to get over that, are you?" I asked. Bex tried not to show it, but I could see the hurt that lingered in her eyes, even after all this time.

"Probably not," she answered quietly, her tone honest. "And I bet neither is Zach."

"Bex, it's been _years_. . ." I argued.

"Yeah," she said, softly. "It has."

I decided to change the subject. "So what's going on with you?"

Bex shifted, and her eyes brightened. "Just got back from Plock. Have you ever been? It was so cool. And not just because I wrapped an enemy agent in a rug, threw him into the Vistula river, and escaped on a ferry."

"Poland?" I asked. "That's quite a story. How much of it is true?"

Bex rolled her eyes. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you, Cammie. You know that."

I laughed. It was the nature of our business, the only truth of this life we'd both chosen.

Bex opened the refrigerator and cracked open a beer that definitely hadn't been there when I'd left. She another waved in my direction, but I shook my head.

"The part where I hooked up with Grant is true for sure, though" Bex said casually, taking a swig. "Ran into him, almost literally, when I was escaping on the ferry, and we just kind of hit it off."

" _Finally_ ," I responded. Macey and I had been teasing Bex about the way she and Grant flirted with each other for years, but neither one of them was the type to make time for relationships. "Annndd?"

"Cammie, you know I have a rule about kissing and telling," Bex warned. It was true. While Bex had a rather modern approach to romance, she never shared the details with us. A wry grin crossed her face. "But I'll admit there were some sparks."

"Ha!" I exclaimed. "We've only been saying that for the last six years."

"I know, I know" Bex rolled her eyes. "It's just complicated." I pinned her with the same look she'd given me earlier, and she laughed. "I'm never in the same place for more than a week, and when I am … I'm not there as myself. Grant's basically in the same position. And so is every other spy I've dated in the last four years. I don't know how anyone's supposed to build a relationship like that."

"Do you want a relationship?" I asked. "Because there's nothing wrong with just having fun. But if you want more than that, you have to fight for it."

Bex was silent for a moment, considering. It was odd. In eight years, I couldn't remember ever actually seeing Bex think.

"I don't know," Bex said softly. I couldn't remember the last time Bex had ever been uncertain about anything. "I love my career. I love my freedom. But sometimes I'm a little jealous of you and Zach. Sometimes I wish I had the luxury of waking up next to the same person every morning. That there was someone who would worry if I missed a call-in. Someone who would move heaven and earth to find me if I disappeared. I've never really been the kind of girl who dreams about settling down. But sometimes, when I see the two of you, I can't help it."

I started to remind Bex that Zach and I weren't exactly a model relationship right at this moment, but she cut me off.

"He's coming back, Cam," Bex assured. "He'll come back, and the two of you will work things out, and you'll be back to making all of us jealous soon enough."

I wasn't at all convinced. Bex hadn't seen Zach's face the night we fought. Bex hadn't woken up to an empty apartment and an ambiguous note. Maybe Zach had left to protect me. But maybe he had just been protecting himself. Maybe Zach would rather let me go that risk seeing me get hurt again.

Bex's arm squeezed my shoulder, and her eyes lightened.

"Hey," she offered, "enough moping. Since your ball and chain isn't here tonight, what do you say I kick your butt at backgammon over a rom-com and some ice cream sundaes?"

It was an offer I couldn't refuse.


	8. Chapter 8

"So when are you going to get around to telling me what really happened?"

Zach studied Grant across the table of the Cantina they'd been visiting the past few nights so that Grant could hit on a cute Columbian bartender.

He was talking to Zach, but his peripheral vision was following the girl. Loretta, Zach thought. Something like that. Honestly, Zach hadn't been listening that carefully when she'd taken their order, and the bar was loud, as always. Plus Grant had a new woman every other week, and Zach grew weary trying to keep track of all of them, and Grant's various legends. He couldn't help but wonder if Grant would ever find someone who made him want to settle down.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach half-shouted over the music. Spanish lip reading really wasn't Grant's best skill.

Grant took his eyes off his latest crush just long enough to roll them at Zach.

"You're here," Grant said slowly, like he was speaking to a small child. "She's not."

"You needed me," Zach tried, but he knew Grant wouldn't buy it. Grant raised an eyebrow.

"We had a fight," Zach admitted. "A big one."

"What, so you just ran off in the middle of the night?" Grant teased.

Zach didn't answer, and something akin to surprise slowly spread over Grant's face.

"Wait, really?" He asked. "Shit." Grant chugged his drink, and stared Zach down. "Well now you definitely have to explain."

"There's nothing to tell," Zach said calmly. "Cammie wanted to break up the team."

" _Shit_ ," Grant repeated. "So are you guys done?"

Zach shrugged, and flagged down Grant's bartender crush for another round. It had been a long week, and Cammie was really the last thing he wanted to talk about.

Grant blew a kiss in Coretta's direction, but grabbed Zach's drink across the table and waved her away.

"Like _done_?" Grant asked. "Because I'll honestly let you have Violetta, I could probably set my sights a little higher..."

" _No_ ," Zach said firmly, annoyed. "I _do not_ want Violetta. Violetta is all yours."

"So you're still with Cammie?" Grant asked, visibly confused.

Zach sighed. "I don't know," he admitted. "I hope so."

Grant's eyebrows continued to climb, and Zach honestly wondered, from an intellectual standpoint, how far up Grant's face they could go.

"She doesn't want to work together anymore. She said I ..." Zach hesitated, considering the surroundings. "She said I interfere with the way she does her job. She said I put myself in unnecessary danger."

Grant considered for a moment. "Do you?" he asked.

For the first time, Zach stopped to think about it. He thought about their mission in Pakistan. And he had to admit that maybe he hadn't made the best decisions. And that maybe Pakistan hadn't been the first time.

Zach shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe."

Grant shrugged.

"But I love her," Zach continued. "I don't trust anyone else to keep her safe. And I can't just sit around and watch her get hurt."

Zach thought of the last time, and all the air left his lungs. An unbidden image of the scars that still covered Cammie's arms sprang to his mind. Zach knew exactly how they had gotten there. Cammie might not actually remember the torture, but Zach had seen it before. Zach _knew_ what caused those scars.

"So you just left," Grant answered. "No offense, Zach, but that's messed up."

Zach didn't argue.

"I mean, she's still going to work with or without you there," Grant reasoned. "So it's better to be halfway around the world where you can't even call her?"

Zach rescued his drink from Grant and finished it. Then he threw a few bills on the table and stood to leave.

"Dude, don't take it like that," Grant chided. "I'm just being honest."

"It's not you," Zach lied, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm just tired."

"I'll come with," Grant said firmly. "Violetta can wait."

Zach expected the fresh air to ease the unfamiliar tightness in his chest, but it didn't help. All he could think about was the night he'd made the impulsive, cowardly choice to run. A choice Zach was pretty sure he'd regret for a long time. Unless he died before then, which was looking like more of a possibility every day.

He'd been an idiot. But he was in too deep now to go back.

"Dude, I'm sorry," Grant offered, as they turned onto their block. "I crossed the line. Don't listen to me. What do _I_ know about love anyway?"

Zach studied the people they passed, careful to avoid any direct eye contact, but to memorize as much as he could at the same time. He'd never seen any of them before. That was a good thing. This was the kind of mission where he could never let his guard down, not even for a moment.

"Me too," Zach mumbled. "And I wish I could take it back," he admitted. He shook his head in frustration. "We left things badly, and ..." Zach hesitated for a moment, still scanning the street, though he wasn't quite sure for what. Perhaps he just wanted an excuse not to look at Grant.

"I don't want her to question, you know? If we die here, I don't want her to always wonder if I really loved her." Zach felt the slightest wetness stirring in the corners of his eyes, and ducked his head to blink it away. "Because I do," he said softly. "And I always have."

Grant's hand pressed into Zach's shoulder in a supportive gesture.

"She knows that," Grant assured. He laughed. "Half the intelligence community does, actually."

Zach nodded silently, and slid his thumb into the hidden scanner on their doorjamb.

"And Zach," Grant said softly. "We're gonna make it home."

* * *

 **Thanks to everyone who is following along. I so enjoy writing for you and reading your reviews. I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Check back in next Sunday for the next installment.**

 **(If you need some happier Zammie in the meantime, feel free to check out my story from last summer "Til Death Do Us Part").**


	9. Chapter 9

Bex stayed with me for almost a week, and even though I thought her story about MI6 forcing her to take some time off between missions so that she wouldn't collapse on the job and sue them (or die) was a lie, I still appreciated her company. Bex was a huge presence, and her personality filled the rooms of my apartment and silenced the voices of doubt that had taken up residence in my head. The voices that warned me I'd made a terrible mistake.

I'd been right. Even Bex ultimately agreed Zach and I shouldn't work together. It was a liability. And I wasn't sorry that I'd ended our professional relationship. It was the only way to keep us both safe.

But I'd gone too far. I'd pressed on some old wounds, and I'd done it on purpose. And I did regret that.

The truth of the matter was that I'd cut Zach deeply long ago, and even though five years had passed, I knew he was still healing. And he probably would be for a long time. I had run. And then I'd gotten really, really hurt.

And for the last five years, Zach had held himself responsible. He wasn't, but that didn't change anything. Zach had tried to find me and failed. And I knew he would probably never forgive himself for that.

I knew, because I still hadn't forgiven myself for that night in the tombs. That night I had left Zach to die.

Of course, he had lived. And I had lived too. But I also knew that neither of us would ever be the same.

I couldn't actually remember the torture. My brain had, mercifully, formed enough scar tissue to protect me from my own life. Certain kinds of music still picked at the scab, still triggered my flight response. Two years ago, I'd suddenly frozen up on a mission in New Orleans during carnival. My brain caught wind of a few bars of music and suddenly I was back in a desolate cabin, humming a haunting tune under my breath, and carving my initials into a stone wall.

I may have forgotten, but Zach hadn't. The moment Zach saw me, he knew what I had been through, even though I didn't know myself. He'd lived with Catherine for fifteen years. He'd seen her in action. But Zach kept that secret, even from me. After all, some things you're better off not knowing.

Zach never mentioned my scars, but I knew it hurt him to see them. I noticed the way he froze briefly any time he brushed against the thickened skin on my arms. His shoulders stiffened. His hands unconsciously clenched into fists. I'd casually started wearing long sleeves whenever possible. It seemed like the least I could do.

I closed my eyes and sighed. With Bex gone, the silence in our apartment was overwhelming.

I stepped onto the fire escape and looked around. I reached up, until I found the metal bar hanging the staircase, and pulled myself onto the roof.

I could see DC's many monuments from the rooftop, due to the city's legislative height limits, but I ignored them. Instead I crawled to the center of the roof and looked up.

Even with the light pollution of the city, the night was clear enough to make out a few stars. I pulled my knees to my chest and concentrated hard.

So hard that I could almost feel Zach's arms wrapped around me, the heat of his skin pressing into my back, could almost taste the salt of our sweat on that hundred degree night four years ago.

We were eighteen, and we'd spent the day moving my things into the apartment, with the help of my mother and Joe Solomon. But eventually, finally, they had left us alone.

I begged Zach to stay, and he resisted at first.

"What are your neighbors going to think?" he teased. I laughed. My neighbors, also Georgetown undergraduates, had been smoking pot since approximately 2 p.m., and had moved on to hosting what sounded like a raucous party. Somehow I doubted they were in any way concerned about my reputation.

So I kissed him, and he caved. It was a hundred degrees that day, and my hair was plastered to my face, sweat dripping down the back of my neck. But Zach's lips trailed over my skin as if he'd never tasted anything sweeter. His arms wrapped around my waist, lingered in my hair. Pulled me so close that we almost felt like one person instead of two.

Suddenly, he pulled away. " _Come on_ ," he called, stepping out of my kitchen window and onto the fire escape. "I bet we can get a great view."

The fire escape didn't have any formal access to the roof, but that wasn't going to stop Zach. My apartment was on the top floor of the four story walk-up, so Zach reached up to the metal support that hung the staircase, and did a pull up, followed by and easy flip onto the roof.

Zach made it look effortless. And it really kind of was. We settled in the center of the roof and stared out at the horizon, where the glow of the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial stood out against the skyline.

Zach stripped off his shirt and pulled me closer, until the powerful muscles of his chest pressed against my back through my tank top. "Guess they weren't kidding about that whole being built on a swamp thing,"he laughed.

"Shhh," I chided. " _Look_."

Zach did look, but not at the skyline. "You can see the stars so well from here," he commented, impressed. "Looks like you've picked yourself a nice piece of real estate Gallagher Girl."

Silence fell around us. I leaned my head back into Zach's chest and concentrated on the feel of his skin against mine, the weight of his arms around me, so that, no matter what happened next, I would always have this moment.

"Are you really going to Bermuda tomorrow?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

"Cam..."Zach started.

I sighed. "I know," I said softly. "I'm sorry."

I'd been downright clingy with Zach since the fire at Gallagher, and I knew it. I'd come so close to losing him so many times over the past year that I didn't want to ever be separated from him again.

Maybe it was the way Zach had made love to me on that porch by that lake just a few months ago. Or maybe it was just the harsh reality of this life we had chosen, finally sinking in. But I dreaded Zach's departure all the way in my bones.

Our bond had been forged in the fires of hell, and I knew no one, not even the most manipulative blacksmith, could ever separate us. Zach had lived my nightmares alongside me, fought my demons, earned my scars. Zach was a part of me now. No matter where our lives took us, I knew that I would always carry Zach with me. And as beautiful as the thought was, it was also kind of terrifying.

Zach nestled his head on my shoulder and spoke softly.

"You know what the best thing is about stars, Gallagher Girl?" he whispered. "They're the same everywhere. No matter how far you travel, no matter how lost you get, if you can see the stars, you can always find your way home."

I nodded, forcing back the tears that threatened to fall. I was stronger than this, I told myself. I was a Gallagher Girl. I wouldn't cry just because my boyfriend was flying halfway around the world to sabotage an international arms deal.

"Cammie," Zach whispered into my hair, and I caught the hint of a sigh in the way he said my name. " _This_ is my home. With you. And I promise, I will always, _always_ find my way back."

But time had passed, and we had grown up. That night, those promises, felt like a million years ago. And I couldn't help but wonder if Zach would still make the same promises if he were here now. I wasn't nearly as sure of the answer as I wanted to be.

It was fall now, and the early edge of winter was creeping into the air. A crisp breeze blew, carrying the earthy, musty smell of rotting leaves.

And when I glanced up at the sky again, the stars were gone.

* * *

 **Only one chapter this week, but I hope the Zammie throwback makes up for it :) Don't worry, we'll be back to two next week, I promise. I hope you're enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying writing for you.**


	10. Chapter 10

The weather was beautiful, but something had felt off the entire day.

For starters, Zach had struggled with his Spanish over a morning meeting with their boss, even though Zach had been speaking Spanish since he was in preschool. Even though Zach knew every dialect by heart, could fake a Columbian accent better than people who'd lived there ten years.

Then he'd almost been made on a routine surveillance task this morning. Surveillance wasn't one of Zach's strongest skills – he'd certainly never be as good at surveillance as Cammie – but the task shouldn't have been difficult, and yet he'd struggled.

Maybe he was getting sick, and illness was fuzzing the edges of his brain. Zach basically never got sick, and when he did, he powered through it. He'd never let something silly, like a virus, knock him off his game. Zach's mind ran back through his day, searching for any opportunities where he could have been slipped some kind of concoction, some sort of poison, but nothing came to mind.

No matter the cause, Zach was eager to get home at the end of the day, especially when the day ended around 2 a.m. As he settled onto the ancient couch in the apartment he was sharing with Grant, he breathed an uncharacteristic sigh of relief. He'd made it through night. He'd probably live to see tomorrow (although he could never be totally sure).

Zach pulled out his phone and checked his dead letter email accounts without thinking about it. It was a reflex, a tick he resorted to every time he was alone.

But they weren't empty. Zach groaned in apprehension and cursed himself for thinking, only moments before, that the day couldn't get any worse. He'd been wrong. He'd been very, very wrong.

"Who is it this time?"

Zach's throat tightened as he read. He didn't answer. Instead he stared at the words in front of him, in disbelief.

"Goode," Grant snapped from across the room. "Spit it out."

Zach swallowed hard.

"Jonas."

He said the name quietly, as if speaking too loud would make it true. But it was true, even if he whispered. Jonas was gone, and nothing would change that.

Grant was over his shoulder before Zach could take another breath. There was silence between them. Pure, touchable silence.

It shouldn't have been possible. Of all of their classmates, Jonas should have been the safest. He was teaching at Blackthorne. He basically lived in his lab. He'd been doing nuclear fission experiments for fun since he was fourteen. Jonas should have been safe.

Instead he was dead.

The email said it was an accident. Zach didn't believe it for a moment, and he knew Grant didn't either.

Grant was silent for a solid ten seconds. When he spoke, his voice was rough.

"That's a hit."

"I know," Zach responded.

"But why?"

Zach shrugged. "What's it matter?"

Zach read the email again. He remembered when he'd first arrived at Blackthorne as a twelve-year old. Jonas had been even scrawnier then, and they'd met because Zach had wandered into a corridor where Grant had two large sophomores pinned against the wall, one in each hand. As Grant threatened the older boys, a tiny Jonas half-pleaded with Grant to stop. The boys hadn't been teasing him _that_ badly, Jonas insisted.

"If you ever so much as look at my friend the wrong way again, I will end you," Grant said calmly, with the authority of someone who'd been almost-hurting bad people for a long time, and had only just realized he could cash in on that skill.

"What are you looking at?" Grant growled, as he turned to glance at Zach.

"Nothing," Zach shrugged. "Carry on."

Grant dropped the older boys, who fell in a jumbled pile on the floor, untangled themselves as quickly as they could, and ran off.

Grant raised an eyebrow at Zach.

"You're Ms. Goode's kid," Grant said knowingly. Zach cringed at the description, but Grant didn't notice.

"Nice moves," Zach commented. They fell into stride together, with Jonas skittering behind them, not entirely sure whether he was invited.

The three of them had been inseparable until four years later, when Zach slipped out of his mother's island house in the middle of the night, rowed to shore, and hitchhiked to within five miles of Joe Solomon's cabin.

The night Zach decided he wouldn't be an assassin. The night Zach promised himself he would never be Catherine.

Despite the distance, they'd kept in touch in the years since. Grant and Jonas had saved his butt during the war with the Circle - the war with his mother. Although they were rarely in the same place, Zach always thought they might reconvene at some point in the future.

Except that Jonas didn't have a future anymore. Just the thought was wrong. Zach was supposed to be the one who didn't make it to 25, not Jonas. For a long time, Zach hadn't even expected to survive until his high school graduation. No one left the Circle and lived to tell about it.

Cammie hadn't really expected to live either. It was one of the things that had made them perfect for each other.

Zach wasn't prepared to graduate from high school, the first boy to earn a degree from the Gallagher Academy. He hadn't ever thought about his long term goals. The only goal that had mattered for the last two years was living until tomorrow.

But, diploma in hand, the world looked different. Zach was moving to DC. Zach was working for the CIA. Zach was building a relationship with Cammie that wasn't based around their mutually anticipated imminent deaths.

And the last four years had been so many things Zach never expected.

Zach loved Cammie in a way he never would have thought possible.

From the moment he met her, Cammie had seen good in Zach that no one else noticed. Good that Zach didn't even notice. Zach had always known he didn't deserve her, and he'd treasured every moment with her because he didn't really expect there to be many more.

It wasn't until Joe Solomon's wedding that Zach really considered what a life with Cammie might look like. And it wasn't until that moment that he realized there was nothing in the world he wanted more.

Zach closed his eyes and tried to picture that night. Cammie dancing barefoot in her periwinkle gown, a beaming smile on her face. Cammie curled in his arms inside the P&E barn. Cammie whispering in Zach's ear that she thought he'd be a good father. Zach could see it as if it were yesterday.

Zach held her until she fell asleep, exhausted from the excitement of the day, and still healing from her recent wounds. He kissed the top of Cammie's head, and when she didn't move, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "You're going to be my wife someday, Cameron Morgan."

Zach had never felt more at home, more at peace, than he had that night. And he'd sworn to himself right there that no harm would come to Cammie, on his watch, ever again.

Maybe that had been misguided. Maybe Zach had underestimated Cammie in an attempt to guarantee her safety. Zach knew better than anyone that in their line of work, guaranteed safety was an impossible goal. But he had pursued it nonetheless. Less to protect Cammie, he realized now, than to protect himself from the possibility of losing her.

But there were no guarantees in this life they'd chosen. Hell, there were no guarantees in anyone's life. And tonight, Zach would give anything to go home. There was nothing Zach wanted more than to hold Cammie in his arms again, for whatever time they had left.

Where was she, right at this moment? Was she off on a mission? Was she safe at home? How had he ever let her get this far away from him?

He should have stayed, and worked things out. He shouldn't be in a basement apartment, halfway around the world. He should have been sitting beside her when he opened this email. She should have wrapped her arms around him, kissed his forehead, held him close. She should have used her touch to draw away his pain.

But there was nothing he could do to reach her now. If he made contact, he'd only be putting Cammie and himself in greater danger. Better to focus on finishing this mission, and working his way home to her as quickly as possible. There was nothing else to do.

"I can't do this anymore," Zach shook his head, annoyed at himself. "We have to end this. I need to go home."

Grant nodded."Then let's get to work."


	11. Chapter 11

When I woke, I was choking on invisible smoke, listening to Catherine Goode's voice echo inside my head. Just like the last fourteen times I'd tried to sleep.

I hadn't dreamt of the tombs in years. As I aged, new nightmares presented themselves to fill the void. I hadn't had an unmedicated decent night's sleep since I was twelve. It was an occupational hazard of sorts, and I'd learned to adapt.

But tonight, every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the Tombs. I was running down the claustrophobic passages at full speed, with suffocating smoke, and the knowledge that I'd left Zach to die, close on my heels.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and held my breath as I checked my dead letter email accounts.

 _Jonas._

My heart broke, as I imagined Zach getting the same news, half way around the world, with only Grant for support.

It was all wrong. Jonas was teaching at one of the most secure and prestigious schools in the country. Jonas should have been safe. But he wasn't. He was dead.

I tapped into the encrypted app I always used if I had to make a call to another agent. I dialed Zach's number.

My finger hovered over the green icon for 14 seconds as I considered my options. I could call Zach. I could talk to him. I could apologize. I could comfort him. But I could also get him killed. And I wouldn't risk that. Ever.

I deleted the numbers. I dialed again. I pressed the green icon.

"I thought you might call!"

From Liz's voice, you'd never have guessed one of her closest industry colleagues had just been murdered. She was just excited to hear from me.

"It's good to hear your voice." A sigh of relief escaped, even though I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath.

"I'm fine, Cam...eleon," Liz stumbled, almost forgetting to use code names. Though frankly, anyone who had clearance to access this phone line probably already knew my story.

"I know you're worried, but I'm fine," Liz rattled.

"Are you taking precautions?" I asked, gently cutting her off.

"Yes," she answered crisply. Even Liz knew better than to go into details. But I also knew there was nowhere she'd be safer than holed up in the Gallagher Mansion with my mother and Joe Solomon.

There was silence for a moment.

"How's he taking it?" Liz asked quietly.

"I don't know," I admitted, trying to keep my voice from cracking. "He's on deep cover. I don't know." It killed me not to know. It killed me not to be able to see Zach, and hold him, and know that he would be okay.

"How are _you_?" I asked. Liz hesitated.

"No one knows what happened," she said softly. "But everyone knows it wasn't an accident."

"I know," I answered. "But they'll find out. And there's no safer place for you right now."

"Joe said this has happened at Blackthorne before — sometimes there are internal political issues, apparently?" Liz tried to explain.

"You mean assassinations," I laughed hollowly. "Like back when Catherine was around."

Liz was silent for another moment before she continued.

"I've been thinking about her a lot lately," Liz said quietly. "I know it sounds silly. But I just have always remembered how much she hated it here, how she never fit in. And every time I get a new student who doesn't quite fit the mold, I think of her."

I smiled. From the day she started teaching at Gallagher part-time almost a year ago, Liz had been passionate about the welfare and training of her students. It was a perfect fit for her.

"I just want to be sure no one at Gallagher is ever that profoundly unhappy ever again," Liz said.

"Who are you worried about now?" I asked.

Liz sighed. "This new girl. She transferred in mid-year, like Macey. She's 16, but she's technically a freshman. She's the daughter of a secret service agent, she foiled a plot to kidnap the President's son last year, and she should be a perfect fit here." Liz hesitated. "But she's always alone, Cam," Liz said sadly. "At least Macey had us."

"Sounds like she's not alone, Lizzie," I assured. "Sounds like she has you looking out for her."

"I guess so," Liz admitted. "I just want every single one of them to love Gallagher as much as we did, you know?"

"I know," I answered. "Don't worry, she'll get there."

The line was silent for a few moments, while I gathered my courage.

"I've been thinking about Catherine a lot lately too," I admitted.

"Of course you have," Liz responded. "You miss Zach."

"I do miss Zach," I admitted. It felt good to say it out loud. "But he left _me_ , Lizzie. I can't sit around moping over someone who may never be coming back."

"Cam," Liz cut me off. "Don't be ridiculous. The only thing that could ever keep Zach away from you is ..." Liz trailed off as she realized what she was saying.

"Death?" I filled in. Liz fell silent again.

"Cam..." she started, apologetically. "Zach's going to be fine."

But I knew there was no way she could promise that. Zach couldn't even have promised that. And he wouldn't have tried.

I knew Liz hadn't meant anything by her comment. All she had done was give a voice to the fears that had already been brewing inside me.

"Don't worry about it," I said quietly. "I have to go now. But I'm so glad you're okay."

"Thanks, Cam," Liz responded, and I could hear the smile in her voice. "It means a lot that you called."

"You know I love you, Lizzie." I responded.

When I hung up the phone and crawled back into bed, I tried to silence my mind. But the problem with meditation is that it only works when you're awake.

If I slept, it was only for a moment. Catherine's words snapped me awake.

" _But who will take you to your Father?"_

Her voice echoed in my ears, cutting through the silence of the apartment. And even though I knew she'd been dead for five years, I could have sworn she was standing next to me.

* * *

 **Thanks so much for joining me this week! Sorry about updating so late in the day. I'm so glad so many of you are following along and enjoying the story. Check back in next week for the next installment!**


	12. Chapter 12

She was standing in the hallway outside the Gallagher hospital wing, and the first thought Zach had was that she looked like a ghost.

She was pale and bruised, and her hair was short and rough and black, but it wasn't really that.

It wasn't even the marks that ran down her arms, the ones that told Zach exactly where she'd been, and who she'd been with.

Cammie had come back to him, but she'd come back as a shell. Something had put out the fire in her eyes, until only pain remained. _Someone_.

It was almost like staring in the mirror.

Zach heard himself say some words, but he didn't really think about them. He was perfectly capable of making polite conversation even when his mind was otherwise occupied.

He reached out to touch her, but he was afraid that she might break, so he stopped short, and only brushed the bottom of her hair.

"It's different," he heard himself mumble. "It's different now."

When she didn't crumble to dust before him, Zach wasn't quite sure what to do.

It was almost worse, seeing her like this, than if she had never returned. He instantly hated himself for the thought.

Cammie was home. _Alive._ And if anyone could understand the hell she'd been through, it was him.

Zach reached out for her, to pull her into his arms, to shield her against the cruelness of their world, the cruelness of his own Mother, but Ghost Cammie just stared through him, as though he wasn't even there.

"We're ready for you now," a voice called in the distance. It was Catherine, even though he knew that wasn't right. In his dreams, it was always Catherine.

Ghost Cammie turned away, and walked slowly in the other direction, rounding a corner and disappearing from his view.

Zach tried to follow her, but he could never run fast enough. No matter how hard he pushed onward, his legs moved painfully slowly. If he chased Cammie's receding figure long enough, he eventually turned another corner and came face to face with his mother.

"Hello, sweetheart," she smirked, oblivious to an unconscious Cammie, who lay crumpled at her feet. "Aren't you going to introduce your little girlfriend to your mother?"

Zach snapped awake, every muscle in his body tense, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He unclenched his fingers, and found his phone without looking, in the same place it had been when he'd reached for it two hours earlier.

Mercifully, his dead letter email accounts were still empty.

Tomorrow would be a turning point in their operation. The first stage of a plan to bring the Doctors into US jurisdiction. Zach knew it would be dangerous; there was no way around that. At any moment, someone could recognize Zach and Grant as the spies they were, and they'd both find a fast route to a shallow grave.

Death was an occupational hazard Zach didn't allow himself to consider very often. Of course he'd killed people. And subconsciously, he knew it could always be him. But it was a thought he pushed down behind the adrenaline, burying reality in the speed of the moments of the life he lived.

Tonight it was different. Tonight he thought of Cammie, alone in their apartment, or lifting off in a government chopper, or running over a rooftop with a bunch of bad guys chasing her, and his chest ached.

If he died now, it would break her.

They had fought, and Zach had run, and if he didn't make it home to apologize, he knew he would never forgive himself. He knew _Cammie_ would never forgive him.

It was entirely his fault anyway. He _was_ overprotective. He _did_ make bad decisions when they worked together. She had been right all along, and he should have just told her. He should have explained that his love for her had clouded his judgment.

Instead he'd left without saying goodbye, just as Cammie had so many years before. Even though he'd known it was wrong. Even though he'd known how badly it would hurt her. But fear and pain and uncertainty had overpowered him.

Zach wanted so badly to make it right. To take Cammie into his arms and tell her that he loved every part of her, even the crazy, ambitious spy parts. Even the parts that perpetually threatened to take her away from him.

The ache in his heart flooded through him, until he couldn't take it any longer. Zach slipped silently from his bed and into the streets. At a twenty-four hour drug store, he purchased a burner phone with bills he'd stolen from Grant's wallet. Zach punched in the emergency access number he'd memorized long ago, and sent a text message before he could stop himself.

 _Be safe._

Zach held onto the phone for a moment longer, knowing the risk he was facing with every passing second, praying, against all odds, that she was out there, missing him, in the same moment.

When the phone buzzed in his hand, twenty-two seconds later, Zach couldn't believe it. The number was blocked, and unlisted, but Zach didn't even question the source.

 _Be vigilant._

She was out there. Cammie was out there, and she was missing him too.

Zach's heart soared as he stomped on the pieces of the burner phone before tossing them off of the nearest bridge.

 _I'm coming home_ , he stared at the sky, willing his message across the globe to Cammie. _I'm sorry, and I love you, and I'm coming home._


	13. Chapter 13

"I told you, I'm fine," I promised. "You don't have to check up on me."

I saw Rachel Morgan Solomon narrow her eyes, and even if she didn't have three decades of clandestine services experience to back it up, the Mother in her would still know I was lying.

"Are you having nightmares again?"

22 years of experience as Rachel Morgan Solomon's daughter had taught me that sometimes lying just won't work. Sometimes you have to tell the right version of the truth.

"Once in a while," I shrugged. "It's an occupational hazard."

My mother studied me for a moment, and I wasn't sure whether she was putting on her mom hat or her spy hat. "You know," she said quietly. "Abby had a lot of nightmares right after she was shot by the Circle of Cavan. And Joe too, after you disappeared senior year."

"Like I said, occupational hazard." Even I heard the defensiveness in my tone.

"Cam, sweetie," she sighed. "Sometimes seeing the people we love put in danger is more of a trauma than any of the other things we do in this job."

I didn't answer. Instead I focused on pushing away all thoughts of my recurring dream. The dream where I left Zach to die.

"The CIA has doctors who handle these situations all the time," she continued. "They'll know how to help you, sweetie."

"Mom, I'm fine," I insisted. "I've had nightmares since the day we lost Dad. They're not any worse than usual."

"Kiddo," my mom said softly, taking my hand gently. "You're not okay. And there is nothing wrong with admitting that. You're a spy, not a robot."

I didn't answer, but I also couldn't meet her eyes.

She sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision when I brought you to Gallagher," she admitted. "It's hard, because I know you were born to do this. I know you'd have been unhappy in a regular school, with a regular life. But I also know what you've been through in the last ten years, and I know what you're going through now. And I can't help but wonder whether this has been any kind of a life for you."

I considered my mother for a moment, and for the first time, I saw not just the woman who had raised me, but the woman who had embraced her family's legacy and become a revered government operative. Then she'd fallen in love, raised a daughter, built a family, only to lose half of that family in a tragic twist of fate. But she hadn't stopped there. Instead she'd shaped an entire generation of exceptional young women, stopped World War III, and found a second chance at love. My mother was incredible, and I'd never really stopped to appreciate it before. I couldn't imagine a greater honor than growing up to have the strength and grace she did.

"I am the daughter of Matthew Morgan and Rachel Cameron," I said firmly. "I would have found my way into this world no matter what you decided."

She smiled a little. "You definitely are that, Kiddo." She sighed. "I still miss your dad so much," she admitted. "But I love Joe too, in a different way. Life is complicated, Cam, and there are no right answers. You just have to do the best you can."

She forced me to meet her eyes. "I know Zach being away must be hard on you. It was always hard on me when your father left, and not just because I had to be a single parent. It's normal to worry."

"Thanks," I answered. "He's just been gone so long. And we fought right before he left, and I don't have any way to apologize. And then with Jonas...I just wish I could be there for him."

I left out the parts of the story she didn't need to hear. Like the text message I'd gotten two weeks ago. The one I knew was sent against deep cover protocol. And the response I'd written, praying, with all my heart, that it wouldn't get Zach killed.

I knew it was dangerous to respond. But I couldn't bear the thought that Zach could read something into my lack of response. The knowledge that Zach could die, never knowing I forgave him, was more than I could take.

So I'd sent the text. And I'd been terrified ever since.

But my mother didn't need to know all the details to make the correct diagnosis.

"Your subconscious is worried you'll never see him again." She said it as a conclusion, not a guess. "You're having nightmares," she continued. "Probably the moments when you almost lost him."

I could have denied it, but I knew it was pointless, so I stayed silent.

My mother drew me into her arms, like I was a girl again. And I cried, for a long time.

"I know you're scared Cam," mom mother said quietly, as I slowly regained my composure. "But that's just the cost of love. You can't give someone your whole heart without also giving them the power to break it."

"Is it worth it?" I asked. Pictures of my mother's face flashed through my head. The phone call she'd received from the CIA director. My father's first funeral. And his second, five years later. The anniversaries she spent curled up in her office at Gallagher. The night we found my father's grave. I had seen my mother torn in two by grief. But somehow, she'd always found the strength to carry on.

She kissed my forehead. "No matter how much it hurt to lose your father, I wouldn't trade a moment of our life together for anything."

"I just feel so weak sometimes," I admitted. "And I hate it."

"Oh, Cam," my mother soothed. "Love doesn't make you weak, it only makes you stronger. Only the strongest people can truly allow themselves to be vulnerable with someone else."

I nodded silently into her chest, but didn't answer. Because I'd never felt more vulnerable than I had in the past two months. Not even when assassins were raining down around me during my senior year of high school.

But I couldn't tell my mother that, so I curled into her lap and tried to convince myself that, in the midst of my weakness, I hadn't made a terrible, terrible mistake.

And then I went to see the CIA's doctor.

* * *

 **Thanks for joining me again this week! I hope you're all enjoying the story. I so enjoy writing for you and reading your reviews. Check back next Sunday for two more chapters!**

 **PS: To the anon who wrote a sad review about me killing Jonas, I'm sorry, I actually didn't even know he had a last name. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't have killed him. No, I probably still would have, sorry :P**


	14. Chapter 14

My dear boy," she smiled, the insanity Zach had come to fear the last seventeen years flickering behind her eyes. "To what do I owe this special visit?"

Zach stood almost three feet away from her on the pier, as far as he could manage without worrying that their conversation would be overheard by the pedestrians who frequented the market stalls nearby.

His gaze didn't shift off the horizon as he said quietly "I think you know."

He pushed his fear down behind his anger, so that she wouldn't hear the desperation that had brought him here.

Catherine laughed for a moment, studying him. Her gaze unsettled Zach to his core, but he'd learned long ago never to let his mother see his weaknesses.

"You're always quietly accusing me of something, aren't you dear?" Catherine smirked. She crossed the distance between them, until her shoulders touched his own. Zach didn't dare move a muscle as she leaned in next to his ear and whispered meanacingly. "Well this time, I want to hear you say it."

Zach was silent for a moment, weighing his options. If he didn't ask, he'd never know if he might have found her. And if she didn't return, if she never returned, he'd always blame himself for not turning over every possible stone. It was the entire reason he'd called this meeting in the first place.

But what if he was wrong? What if Catherine didn't know that Cammie was gone? What if she'd only been guessing when she'd run into Edward Townsend on the tube. What if his question confirmed her suspicions, and she doubled her efforts to find Cammie. He'd never forgive himself for that either.

Well, damn. He was going down either way.

"Where is she?" Zach asked, his voice as low and demanding as he could manage.

In seventeen years, he'd already acrued a liftime of regrets. What more could it matter now?

"And to think I thought you just missed your mother." Catherine laughed wildly, and despite his best efforts, Zach shivered a bit at the sound.

"Where is Cammie?" She asked, happily. "Now if I knew that, I'd be the toast of the CIA, wouldn't I?"

Zach studied her for a moment, and from the evil that danced in her eyes, Zach was sure Catherine already knew that Cammie was gone, alone. It was the only reason she'd agreed to meet him, to gloat.

"Oh Zach," she smirked. "I always told you Cammie was the wrong girl for you."

Zach remained silent. In his peripheral vision, Zach saw her eyes turn to rest on the horizon.

"You'll never find her," Catherine said softly. "At least, you'll never find her alive."

She stepped away from the railing and turned toward the market. Zach knew better than to follow. His mother would never have met him without placing a sniper on every rooftop in a three block radius.

Zach wasn't quite sure how, five years later, he found himself on the same pier in southern Spain, leading a sting against an international ring of underground pharmaceutical drug smugglers, but he had.

It was different this time, but that day played on the edges of his mind. Zach found the irony of using Catherine's meeting place mildly amusing.

And every step he took toward bringing the Doctors into US jurisdiction was a step toward Cammie.

The courier had taken his package, which would be delivered to Tina Walters, who was posing as Hollywood's prettiest pharmaceutical drug dealer, any day now. Tina's unauthorized deep cover mission as part of the Khardashians' staff had gained her access to some of the most elite parties on the west coast, and while Townsend had not been pleased to learn of her whereabouts, he couldn't deny the usefulness of her cover.

So much had changed since he last stood on this pier. Catherine was dead, and the Circle of Cavan defeated, or at least buried so far underground that it seemed that way.

And Zach had changed, too, though he would have sworn, five years ago, that it wasn't possible.

Zach was twenty-three now, and his seventeen year old self seemed like a shadow, a distant memory. As much as Zach hated to admit it, he'd become a different man when he met his father, the unwaveringly loyal Edward Townsend. Despite his initial misgivings, and their awkward and tenuous relationship, Zach had found peace in the knowledge that at least half of the blood in his veins was innately good. That maybe it could overpower the part of him that was Catherine.

The last time he stood on this pier, he had desperately feared for Cammie's life. Cammie had run, and he'd been terrified. Unable to face the possibility of losing the only person who had ever seen the good in him, he had sought out his mother, in a last ditch effort to gain some information about Cammie's whereabouts.

But today, Zach realized, he wasn't afraid. Maybe he had been, five months ago, when he'd first left her. But Cammie had changed in the last five years too. She had grown into a devestatingly beautiful woman and a truly capable and talented spy. And Zach was still madly, desperately in love with her.

But he also knew that he couldn't allow that love to hold her back. Partly because it would be wrong, to deprive the world of the unstoppable force that was Cameron Morgan. And partly because he knew it was the surest way to lose her.

Five years ago, Zach had stared at this horizon as his mother walked off this pier and back to Cammie, who, the CIA eventually concluded, she had captured just days before.

Then he had slammed his left fist into the railing so hard that he'd fractured two small bones in his hand.

Zach slipped off his gloves, pausing for a moment to examine the permanent, deformed shape of his pinky finger. Then he slid a promotional postcard and a pen from his pocket, and wrote out the address to Cammie's father's post office box, one of the only true dead letter drops that remained.

Though Zach knew Cammie kept the box out of nostalgia, he also knew she checked it weekly.

Zach smiled as he placed the postcard in a mailbox, and boarded a private plane back to Columbia.


	15. Chapter 15

I inherited my father's dead letter drop shortly after the CIA finally recovered his body, almost five years ago.

It was an odd process. According to the District of Columbia, my father had been dead for years. But according to the CIA, we couldn't claim any of my father's non-monetary assets until they had a body. The CIA would monitor any possible contact points until they were sure my father had come in from the cold.

My mother gave me the key to my father's decommissioned dead letter drop the day after I graduated. She never intended me to actually visit it, but I did.

It was a rural post office delivery box in Prince William County Maryland, in front of what appeared to be a burned out , overgrown farmhouse. No one was supposed to know it had always been that way. No one was supposed to know that the estate of my father's Swiss alias owned the land.

Two weeks after graduation, I drove to the box and opened it. I expected it to be empty, swept clean by the CIA, but it hadn't been. Instead there was a piece of junk mail, an ad for Georgetown University.

It felt like a sign.

Although I never told my mother how I reached a decision, I enrolled at Georgetown that fall, and moved into an apartment nearby. But once a week, as much as I could, I made the drive out to my father's box.

It was empty every other time I visited, but it didn't matter. I used the opportunity to think about my dad, to listen for his presence. It might sound insane, but when I visited the box, I felt him near me.

So my father's Swiss estate was never closed, and my Croatian alias continued to pay the taxes on the property.

It had snowed that day, which was out of the ordinary for DC in November, and I contemplated not making the drive. But the ground wasn't cold enough for the flakes to stick, and I knew I'd be leaving for Nicaragua in less than 48 hours.

So I made the trip out to my dad's property, and I slipped the key off the chain around my neck and opened the box.

For the first time in four years, the box wasn't empty. Instead, there was a promotional postcard for a clothing store in Milan, with a postmark from Barcelona. No note, just the address written out in Zach's handwriting. The ad on the front, loosely translated, warned that the fall fashion season would be ending soon.

I held the postcard to my chest for a moment and a few tears of relief trickled down my face. Zach was alive. Zach was coming home.

I climbed back into my car and pushed the speed limits all the way back to DC, hope and adrenaline coursing through my veins.

"Thanks, Dad," I whispered under my breath as I pulled away.

It may sound crazy, but even though my father had been dead for a long time, I knew he was still watching over Mom and me.

I know what you're thinking, lots of people believe in the afterlife. But this was different. I may not have remembered everything that happened to me at Catherine's cabin in the woods, but, I hadn't forgotten everything either.

I remembered waking up on a hard cot, in a dark room with one tiny window and a single lightbulb. The musty smell of the room filled my nose, and nausea threatened to make me sick. I wasn't sure what exactly had been in that tranquilizer dart, but I was pretty sure it had been powerful enough to fell a horse.

I could hear footsteps above me, but instinct told me not to move. A single squeak of the thin mattress could bring my assailants down on me, and I wasn't ready. I needed time to rest, to plan.

My hands were tied half-heartedly, but I hadn't been otherwise secured. Whoever had brought me here had been certain I would remain unconscious during the journey, and clearly wasn't concerned about a possible escape.

 _No one leaves here_ , a voice echoed in my head. But the voice wasn't mine. My brain was still spinning, recovering.

As the seconds passed, things grew clearer. I took in brick walls, a low ceiling. I heard at least two sets of footfalls upstairs.

But I still didn't know where I was. I remembered running through the streets of Barcelona. I turned through an alley, a shortcut, but I tripped and fell. _How careless_ , I remembered thinking to myself. My shoulder ached where it had slammed into the cobblestones. I reached to rub it, and that's when I felt the giant tranquilizer dart. And then everything went black.

I felt for my hair. I'd showered before I'd set off that morning, I was sure, and yet two days worth of grease clogged my hairline. If I'd been unconscious for the last two days, I was probably dehydrated too. I also probably hadn't eaten, and my head was spinning. Fighting now would be difficult, if not impossible. I needed more time, and I wasn't at all sure I would get it.

Once again, I was thankful that I'd mailed my father's necklace home to Joe's cabin. At least if I died here, eventually, someone would unravel the web of clues I'd left behind.

I pressed my hands to the walls. They were cooler than I'd have expected for summer, and I concluded we must be in the mountains. My fingers brushed against an indentation in the brick.

 _Look_ , the voice whispered. _Down here_.

The indent was small, and tucked down on the wall behind the cot. And I knew what it would say before I even saw it.

 _M.A.M._

Without thinking, I pushed my nails into the softened mortar the same way I knew my father had, probably seven years earlier.

 _C.A.M._

I had no sooner finished carving my initials than I heard the sound of footfalls on the stairs.

"Hello, Cammie" Catherine smirked. "So nice of you to finally join us."

Try as I might, I still couldn't fill in what happened in the three weeks that followed. The next thing I remembered clearly was standing in a rectangular clearing that shouldn't have existed. A man-made space so deep in the woods that no one would ever find it.

"I promised you I'd take you to see your father, Cammie darling," Catherine sneered. "Well, this is where I left him!"

She'd brought me to the clearing alone. The other man, the one I was sure I knew from Gallagher, but couldn't quite place, hadn't joined us. It was turning into fall, I thought, perhaps he was needed back at school.

I remembered thinking, at the time, that it was because she knew how weak I'd become, bruised and beaten and half starved, during what I thought had been about three weeks. She must have thought that once I saw my father's grave, I'd crumble to dust beside him and give her the information she so desperately wanted.

She didn't know that my father had been protecting me from her. That I'd spent the last three weeks cowering in a corner of my brain where I barely felt the crush of her boots in my ribs, the sting of her knife on my skin.

Of course, looking back, I knew she'd intended me to run. That my "escape" had simply been part of her long game.

 _Run_ , the voice in my head screamed. _Run, Cam. Now._

I pushed down the overwhelming sadness that washed over me, the drop I felt in the pit of my stomach the moment I saw the clearing. My father was dead. My father was here. But in a way, I had known the moment I'd heard his voice in my head, the moment I'd seen his initials on the wall.

I was sure of one other thing too. I wasn't going to let him down. I wasn't going to join him, six feet underneath this clearing. I was going to run, until I could lead someone back here and bring him home. And then I was going to finish what he started.

I let the adrenaline course through my veins; let my instincts tell my body what to do.

And then Catherine was on the ground, and I was running, as fast as my legs would take me, as far away as possible.

I snapped tree limbs as I ran. I had to live. But I also had to find my way back here.

I couldn't remember running ever being so difficult before. I wasn't at my best. Far from it, in fact. My legs were jelly from lack of use, and my usually sure-footed steps felt uneven and untrustworthy. I tripped down a bank and hit my head, and the world blurred and spun.

 _Get up_ , the voice screamed. _Keep running._

I did as I was told, until eventually I could go no further. My knees buckled. My palms found the grass below me. My limbs felt heavy. My vision went dark.

I expected the voice to scream at me, to urge me on, but it didn't. Instead it whispered softly, _You're okay, Cam. You're safe now._

I never told anyone about the voice I heard in the mountains. They would have said I was hallucinating. But I knew differently. I knew my father had brought me home safely, so I could bring down the circle.

I'd never explicitly heard my father again, but I still felt his presence. And sometimes it was nice to know I had someone looking out for me, and, by association, for Zach.

 _Zach was coming home._ It took all my self-control not to scream it at the top of my lungs all the way back to DC.

Of course, it was impossible to say how soon. Zach could be gone for months yet, there was no way to know. And of course, I knew Zach was still in danger. We both were, always.

When I got home, I packed my bag. I called Townsend and arranged to go to Nicaragua a day early. And then I pushed Zach from my mind, and focused on doing my job.

I would locate a notorious international arms dealer, as instructed. And then I would go home. And Zach would be waiting.

* * *

 **Thanks so much for joining me for this week's installment! Hope you're all enjoying this so far. I love writing for you and reading your reviews. Check back in next Sunday for a few more chapters.**


	16. Chapter 16

Nothing had gone as planned.

Four weeks ago, Zach had stood on a pier and written the address of Matthew Morgan's letter drop on the back of a promotional postcard, wondering, as he did so, whether he might actually beat the postcard home.

He'd been wrong. Instead of neatly wrapping up his case and grabbing the next flight home to Cammie, he'd been presented with a comedy of errors. Well, comedy wasn't really the right word.

First, Tina Walters had been ambushed at the dead drop. She'd been fine, but a nasty clonk on the head had robbed her of her short term memory immediately preceding the attack for over a week. Even when she finally remembered what had happened, she couldn't recall her attacker's face.

Of course Zach had learned this through a very careful and strategic grapevine. All the Doctors knew was that their street dealer, the dealer Zach had recommended, had been compromised.

It had been a major setback. Zach was on pins and needles for weeks, and there were several moments when Zach wasn't sure he would make it home at all. Where he was nearly certain his body would be fished out of a Columbian river in a few weeks' time, when the CIA eventually got wind of his death. At least Grant could tell them where to start looking.

In the end, it had been Zach's classmate, Michael Armstrong, who had come through. He'd long had well-established contacts in the drug-dealing underworld, through his undercover work for the DEA, and somehow he'd caught wind of Zach and Grant's involvement with the doctors. Of course, he'd known them immediately, despite their intricate legends. Michael had helped them right the course of their mission, and had agreed to smuggle the drugs into the United States, on the condition that his agency would get a slice of the credit.

Then Michael had auditioned for the rest of the Doctors, and he'd impressed them so much that even Zach questioned his loyalty for a moment.

Four weeks later, Zach was finally back on solid ground, and the mission was back on track. He would make it home, eventually. And when he did, Cammie would be waiting.

Zach tried not to think about the assignment he'd been given just the day before. He'd been instructed to travel to Nepal and meet with the Doctors' eastern hemisphere associate. As the Doctors' operation expanded, they could handle more of their own jobs. They needed fewer third-parties to broker their transactions.

But the meeting was more than a meeting. Zach was supposed to work out a plan to quietly eliminate this particular associate. After all, it was what he'd been trained to do so many years ago.

But it was also the one thing he'd promised himself he'd never do again.

Six years earlier, Zach had left his mother's island home for what he thought would be the last time. Even now, he could still remember the stillness of that night. Out of everything, it was the silence that had really taken root in his mind. There should have been so many noises on a June night, just a few miles off the coast of North Carolina: fish splashing, crickets chirping, boat motors purring. Instead, there was only the quiet rhythmic stroke of Zach's oar, as it cut through the water.

Zach knew, as he rowed, that he wouldn't get away with it. The moment Zach returned to the island from Blackthorne, he realized coming back had been an enormous mistake. He'd been looking for a way out for the past two weeks, but this was the first opportunity he'd gotten. His plan was careful and strategic, but Catherine had been matching him step for step during the last two weeks. He had no reason to think that would change now.

Of course, his mother knew that things hadn't gone according to plan at Gallagher, that Zach and "Dr." Steve had failed to locate and clone the real drive of Gallagher alumni. Catherine was angry, but so far, her anger was mostly directed at Dr. Steve.

So far, Catherine was only _suspicious_ of Zach. If his mother had heard about his flirtations with Cameron Morgan, who Zach now knew to be her primary target, she didn't let on.

She certainly didn't take care to hide her intentions from Zach. But maybe, Zach thought, that was all part of her game. Where was the fun in winning if no one else showed up to play?

Even if she did know about Cammie, Zach was certain Catherine couldn't know about the agreement he'd made with Joe Solomon.

Joe had agreed to help Zach escape the Circle. All Zach had to do was stay at Blackthorne until Joe could come for him.

Zach waited two weeks before returning to the island. And even though he'd broken his promise, he didn't regret it for a moment. Zach had learned the kind of valuable information that could only found whispered inside his mother's walls.

Finally, Zach had confirmation that the Circle wanted Cammie. And they wanted her alive. At least for now. Catherine had a plan in place - a grab team assembled and ready to strike at the first opportunity. That was all Zach knew, but it was enough to spur him into action. It was enough to guide him into a barely seaworthy rowboat at 2 a.m. and send him paddling to shore. It was enough to put him in a truck cab headed north.

It was enough for Zach to steal a motorcycle and go hiking through the forest to Joe Solomon's cabin.

Eventually, Catherine would find him. But if he could only get a few hours' head start, perhaps he could pass along his message, his warning, before she caught up.

Zach knew what happened to traitors to the Circle. Traitors to _Catherine_. But he'd accepted his fate the moment he dipped his oar into the water. Catherine was an assassin, and Zach had been trained to be one too. He knew what his life would look like unless he fought to change it. And a life with the Circle wasn't a life at all.

Zach was a spy, not a killer. But if he stayed, he would become one.

He had no option but to strike out on this own, to do what he could before his choices caught up to him. Zach knew better than anyone that no one who left the Circle lived to tell about it.

No one except Joe Solomon.

Zach had never known his father, but he couldn't imagine anyone who could ever hold a candle to Joe. Joe had looked out for Zach for so long, Zach couldn't even remember when it had started. And yet, he was more of an older brother than a father. A partner in crime, so to speak.

Before Zach left for Blackthorne, at the age of 12, Joe took him aside and hastily sketched a map on a discarded piece of newsprint.

"Memorize this," he instructed, without explanation. Thirty seconds later, Joe stuffed the paper into the closest fireplace, carefully watching until every last line of ink was consumed by flame.

"Only one other person has ever seen that," Joe said firmly, "And he's dead now." The warning in his tone made twelve-year-old Zach shiver.

Zach nodded silently, and tucked the map into the back corner of his brain without much additional thought. But he was certainly glad for it now.

Zach cut through the wood with ease, careful to trip at least one of Joe's silent alarms. He didn't think showing up to Joe's secret cabin unannounced at 5am would yield the best results.

Joe was fishing on the dock, so Zach settled at the kitchen table, and nodded off. He jolted back to consciousness when a knife plunged into the wall six inches from his head.

"Geeze, Joe," Zach snapped, instantly awake. "You could have killed me."

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Joe said casually, without even glancing in Zach's direction. "You can tell by the not being dead."

They sat in silence on Joe's porch for a long time, and Zach reveled in how comfortable the silence was. Not like the feeling on the island at all - there was a sharpness to the silence on the island that Zach had never felt anywhere else.

Whatever Joe was to Zach, first and foremost, he was a friend, and Zach trusted him unconditionally. After a short while, Zach found the courage to speak.

"I'm afraid, Joe," Zach said softly.

Until he said the words, Zach hadn't even admitted them to himself. He didn't usually allow himself to be afraid. But tonight his fear overpowered him. It drove him. It was fear, after all, that had sent Zach on a suicide mission to deliver a message he wasn't supposed to know.

Of course, Zach was afraid for Cammie.

But he was also afraid of himself. Zach was afraid of who he was, and of who he was becoming. But mostly, he was afraid that if he didn't fight hard enough, he would become the kind of person who could make the plans he'd just divulged.

Being a spy was one thing. Being an assassin was entirely different. And Zach promised himself that he would never again cross that line.

In the years that had followed, Zach had never looked back.

But now, it seemed he would have to do just that.

Zach would go to Nepal. To do otherwise would almost certainly assure his death. He would meet the Doctors' eastern hemisphere associate. He would gather the intelligence the Doctors wanted. He would help them formulate a plan to eliminate their competition.

But he would try to remember that he wasn't an assassin. That he hadn't planned to kill anyone in a very _very_ long time. That he was doing something good, even if it didn't seem that way.

And he would hope to God this mission was finished before he had to follow through.


	17. Chapter 17

Looking back, it was difficult to remember exactly where I slipped up.

One moment I was tailing my target's girlfriend through an open air market, strolling casually between stalls hawking fresh produce and Arepa. The next moment I was being stuffed into the back of a surprisingly sturdy food cart. Although I fought back with all my might, I was overpowered, subdued, and gagged.

That had been three days ago. Now I was sitting cross-legged on the ground, under a tent-like structure, listening to the breeze blow softly through the flap windows. My blindfold and gag remained off, and it wasn't difficult to reason why: the tent was deep in the jungle, miles from anyone who might hear me. And I was pretty sure I would be dead soon.

I thought I had grown, both as a spy and as a person, in the last five years, but as the reality of my current predicament stared to register, I had to admit that maybe Zach had been right.

Maybe I couldn't do this on my own.

The wind whistled through the trees. I closed my eyes and slowly worked at the rope that bound my wrists together. The air smelled of rain and smoke, and something else that I couldn't quite place. If I had to put it into words, I'd have said it smelled like fear.

I tried to concentrate, but my brain swirled. On the inside of my closed eyelids, all I could picture was Zach's face.

It had been five years since Catherine had held and tortured me. Thankfully, I still couldn't remember very much. But when I returned to Gallagher, I'd run into Zach in the hallway. And even though the majority of my memories were obscured, I could still recall Zach's expression with perfect clarity.

It was the same one he might have worn at my funeral.

And a few weeks from now, when the CIA found my body, when the inevitable phone call finally came, he'd wear it again.

Bruises and scabs had formed along my arms since the previous night's interrogation, and I examined them with casual interest. I wondered calmly if they would scar badly enough to hide the souvenirs Catherine had left on my skin five years before. I doubted it. Nothing else ever had. I doubted I would even live long enough to find out.

My mind churned, moving in circles and settling again and again on the same thought. Zach and I had fought, and then he'd left. And now I would never get the chance to make it right.

 _How had I let this happen?_

Well, really, I knew how.

It had been six weeks since I'd found the postcard. I'd expected Zach to be waiting, safe, in our apartment when I returned from Nicaragua, but he hadn't been.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I was also really sad.

From an objective viewpoint, I had only been gone six days. "Soon" was a relative term, not an appointment date. Zach couldn't actually be late if there wasn't a deadline, could he? There was no cause for concern. Missions were unexpectedly extended all the time.

Two weeks passed. Then four. I heard nothing, not a postcard or a letter, or a dead letter email message.

 _No news is good news._ I chanted the words in my head like a mantra. If Zach were missing or dead, I would have heard something. Surely I would have heard something.

I got a call from Townsend halfway through the fifth week. Despite ten years of training, my heart started to pound so furiously as I answered that I was certain Townsend could hear it on the other end of the line.

But he'd only sent me to Maracaibo, to search for an agent who'd gone off the grid, a man known inside the agency as Michael Armstrong. It wasn't the first time I'd been called in on a mission like this. Deep cover reconnaissance had become another one of my specialties. It was my job to get in, get a visual confirmation, and get out, with no one the wiser. It was an area where I excelled.

Usually.

There had been a person in the crowd whose shoulders and gait bore such a remarkable resemblance to Zach's that, when I'd caught him out of the corner of my eye, I'd temporarily forgotten my purpose. My head snapped back over my shoulder, almost as a reflex, before I even processed what I'd seen. But he was gone, and I couldn't really be sure that I hadn't imagined the whole thing.

It had only taken a moment. One glance, one distraction, and the next thing I knew, I was being stuffed in a rickety food cart.

I was going to die. And Zach would never know how sorry I was.

It hadn't felt like this the last time. Of course I'd been angry when I woke up in Catherine's cabin, but not at myself. I'd thought of Zach, and my friends, and taken comfort in their absence. Because I knew that they'd be safer with me gone.

This was different. For starters, I was furious with myself. My own weaknesses had gotten me here. I'd lost my focus. I'd turned to look for Zach in the crowd. And in doing so, I'd let him down in the worst possible way.

But even now, I desperately wished it had been him. Of course, I wished I could have seen him one last time. I wished I could have apologized. But more than that, I knew that if Zach were here, we would have found a way out.

Zach was my partner, in the truest sense of the word. And I needed him. I hadn't ever needed anyone before, but I needed Zach. And he needed me too.

I heard gunshots, three of them, across the camp. I heard men running. The man who'd been guarding me looked me over from head to toe, just once. And then he also ran.

I wasted no time. Using the hooks on the tent, I leveraged my hands free, and tore at the ropes around my ankles. Then I scrambled under the back edge of the tent, into the jungle, and ran with all of my might. And I didn't look back for a moment.

* * *

 **Hi, everyone. I'm so sorry about my absence. My personal life has been crazy, and I had finally caught up to a chapter I hadn't finished for you. But don't worry, all the chapters from here out are done and ready. Thanks for reading, and I hope you're enjoying so far. I love writing for you. Hope to see you back here next Sunday for the next installment (I promise!).**


	18. Chapter 18

There was blood on Zach's hands, and it wasn't his own.

He'd tried to wash it away, but it hadn't gone willingly. He'd spent hours scraping every drop from the crevices around his fingernails, but just when he thought his hands were clean, he'd find another stain.

By the morning, he was sure he was hallucinating. Guilt had overpowered his senses. The blood was his own by now, surely, the result of scraping at his nail beds until they were raw, washing his hands until they burned.

It had been eight years, but Zach was sure that it hadn't been like this the last time. He would have remembered the scent that lingered in his nose, the jagged edge he felt every time he drew a breath, the panic that coursed through his veins and wouldn't subside.

No, Zach hadn't felt like this before, he was certain of it. He'd received his instructions. He'd carried out the hit. And then he'd returned to his room at Blackthorne. And he was fairly sure he'd been satisfied with the B+ he'd gotten on the assignment.

But things had changed in the last eight years. _Zach_ had changed.

And tonight he was wracked with guilt.

It wasn't as if he hadn't killed anyone since leaving Blackthorne. He had. Lots of people. But always in self defense. Never premeditated. Never in cold blood.

Today, that had ended. And his hands hadn't stopped shaking since.

Just looking at his own reflection in the mirror horrified him. Zach stared for a moment, forcing himself to acknowledge the monster he'd become. The monster he'd always been. Then he slammed his fist into the image, scattering shards of glass across the floor, embedding the tiny particles in his own skin.

Now he really was bleeding.

Zach slid to the ground, grateful for the fact that Grant had been sent away to Sao Paulo. He clenched his eyes hard against the tears, but they came anyway. Not from the glass in his hand- that had only just started to sting. From the knowledge that every step he'd taken toward the light, every good deed he'd done in the last eight years had brought him back to this moment. That despite every good choice he had made, he was still a person who could do what he'd just done.

He was still an assassin. He was still _Catherine_.

Zach's shoulders shook, and he ached to feel Cammie's arms wrapped around him.

 _Cammie._ She could never know about this. Cammie could never love an assassin. And Zach couldn't even blame her.

And yet, how could Zach ever hide from her the horror he felt at what he had done? She would see through him in an instant. And then he would lose her for sure. It was for the best, really. If Zach was honest with himself, he knew he wasn't good enough for her. Hell, he had always known it.

The man Zach had killed hadn't been a good person. Far from it, actually. Farrs Hester had been the Doctors' eastern hemisphere associate, the man who smuggled their drugs to Russia and Turkey and Australia, and everywhere in between. With Zach and Grant's assistance, the Doctors' operation had grown exponentially. They no longer needed others to do what they could do themselves.

Zach had planned it from the beginning, all the while hoping that the Doctors would be lured into US jurisdiction before he had to follow through. But it had happened too quickly, too easily. He had convinced Hester to travel to Venezuela for an in-person meeting. He'd agreed, without the slightest suspicion. Zach had suggested a location in the jungle to set up a camp. And then he had walked into that camp and killed him.

There had been witnesses, henchmen, but they had scattered into the jungle. None of them were loyal enough to seek revenge. If they hadn't feared the Doctors before, they did now.

Hester wasn't a good person. Of course Zach knew that. He'd no doubt killed others without a thought. Zach had overheard him talking to his men. Something about a girl he'd recently tortured. He certainly would have killed Zach had their roles been reversed. But that wasn't what mattered. Zach had broken every rule of professional courtesy and fair play. Today, he hadn't been a spy. Today, he'd been a killer.

Zach took a deep breath. It was over now. And he would just have to live with what he had done.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. His face dried. The shaking slowed. His heart rate evened to a normal rhythm. Zach pushed his feelings away, until he felt hollow and empty and numb. Until he felt like his old self.

Then Zach opened his eyes, and examined his hands with the cool calculating gaze of a professional. The blood was his own now, and he rinsed it in the sink. Using sterilized tweezers, he plucked the bits of glass from his knuckles, without even flinching. Antiseptic. Gauze. Adhesive bandage. His motions were robotic, practiced, instinctive.

Zach swept up the glass, and emptied it in the trash can. And then he laid out a new plan. Zach was going home. And this time, no one would get in his way.


	19. Chapter 19

I was being followed. The tail had appeared halfway through my morning run, but I'd kept going. I tried, half-heartedly, to shake her, but today was my day off, and the workaholic in me relished the entertainment.

She was good. She kept pace with me, and yet I never saw her. But I knew she was there. A flash of red hair in my peripheral vision. A too-sharp movement that caught my eye. A coffee cup I kept seeing in the air, but couldn't connect with a person. But mostly it was the shiver that ran down my spine every time I felt her gaze.

I slowed when I reached the zoo, the uphill portion of my run where I usually passed the seven mile mark. I ducked through the usually open maintenance door, and slipped back onto the path.

I loved the zoo. People-watching was my drug of choice, and loved to memorize every person in the park as I ran. There were so many of them, all from different walks of life - tourists and locals and children and college kids and even the zoo employees, who I now knew by name, despite never having met them.

I ducked into the gift shop for a few moments, and slipped out the other door. It took her some time to find me, but she was back on my tail before I reached the top of the hill.

I laughed internally. I was up for a game, if that was what she wanted.

I jogged on, and turned down the steepest hill in downtown DC, just passed Cleveland Heights. This street was largely made of apartment buildings, and the foot traffic was minimal due to its altitude. My tail would surely have to give up or expose herself to follow me.

"Nice job," she mumbled, grudgingly, as she stepped out from a behind bus sign., and I knew she was rolling her eyes just from her tone.

"Nice wig."

This time I could actually see Macey roll her eyes.

"Drink?" She asked.

I shrugged. "It's my day off."

We tucked ourselves into the back booth of a run-down bar in Mount Pleasant, the kind of place where the staff made a concerted effort not to remember anyone who came in.

"What brings you back to DC?" I teased.

Macey laughed. "Nostalgia."

"So you went to visit all of your old haunts?"

"Just the place I used to live," she said dryly. "British haven't burned it down again yet, so that's good."

I bit back a giggle.

Macey stirred her drink slowly. "Better half is still on his business trip?" she asked knowingly.

"Bex told you to check up on me, didn't she?"

Macey shrugged. "You look like hell, so apparently it was warranted."

"What have you heard?" I asked.

Macey shrugged again. "Just rumors."

"Well I'm fine," I insisted.

"If you say so." The sarcastic tone of Macey's voice told me she didn't believe me for a second.

We sipped in silence for a moment. The waitress who'd been waiting on us clocked out, looking worried. The bartender was suddenly replaced by a different man. Two new patrons entered the restaurant and sat down on the same side of a booth, facing us. It all could have been a coincidence, but I was fairly sure it wasn't.

"Mace...?" I started, but she was already sliding two twenty dollar bills onto the table and getting out of her seat. I followed.

We slipped out of the restaurant and ducked into Rock Creek Park, heading south along the river. Rock Creek Park wasn't exactly the kind of place where people went alone. But it was a good place for an unexpected altercation without a lot of onlookers.

"Mace, what are you actually doing here?"

"You know I can't tell you that." I could hear the eyeroll again, even though she'd pulled ahead of me.

"Does it have something to do with the six government operatives who are following us?"

"Just one," Macey shrugged. "The others are kind of a bonus.

As we ran through the park, I could tell Macey was leading us in a particular direction, toward a meeting point.

I ran through the faces in my mind, searching for one I recognized. Something clicked.

"Human trafficking?"

Macey nodded. "He's been trying to kidnap my protectee, we think, on behalf of a foreign government."

"Does your protectee happen to have red hair?"

"Not a great color on me, huh?"

I laughed. "We?"

As if on cue, I heard a crash behind us, and three women I hadn't seen in a long, long time came flying out of the trees and landed on the people chasing us. Within seconds, I could hear the blades of a government chopper whirring in the distance.

"Hi, Cam!" An overexcited Anna Fetterman squealed giddily from her perch atop of a large, dark-haired man. Kim Lee raised her free hand to wave (she was a bit preoccupied leveling a gun at a tall, terrifying Eastern European woman).

"Good to see you, squirt!" Aunt Abby called, while tying up two more operatives. "I had a bit of a personal score to settle," she winked, sensing my question before I could even ask it.

"Go, go!" Anna encouraged. "We've got this under control. You two catch up."

Macey looked at me. I nodded.

We settled on a log about a mile further down the river.

"Well that was fun," I admitted.

"Sorry I spoiled your day off," Macey said.

"No problem," I laughed. "You should know better than anyone what a workaholic I am."

Macey snickered quietly, then fell silent. For a few moments, the air hung between us, full of things we both wanted to say, but couldn't quite get out. Finally, Macey broke the silence.

"It's okay if you're not fine, Cam."

I sighed. "I just don't feel like myself anymore," I admitted. I'd been thinking the words for weeks, but I hadn't been able to say them aloud, not even to the CIA's psychiatrist. I'd been too afraid of what they might mean. But as I shared my fears with Macey, I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders.

Macey was unphased. "Of course you don't," she shrugged. "We're growing up, Cam. We're changing. It's hard."

"That's for sure," I agreed.

"The trick is finding the people we can grow together with. I think you've done pretty well in that department."

I sighed, frustrated. "I just want him to come home. And that makes me feel so weak."

"Well that's stupid," Macey said, her usual matter-of-fact tone returning. "That's just the cost of having the right people in your life. I miss all my friends when I'm on the road. You, Bex, Liz, Preston...we live a lonely life. There's nothing weak about wanting the people you love near you."

"Preston?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. I swore I could see Macey blush under her 5 layers of foundation.

"Preston's my best friend," she shrugged. "No offense to you, of course. We've both dated lots of other people, but we keep coming back to each other. It's just that neither one of us really knows how to be in a relationship."

I laughed. "It's harder that it seems, huh."

"Oh, please," Macey rolled her eyes. "You and Zach are fine. You had one little fight. And he had a _Cammie Moment._ But he'll come home, and you'll be fine." She laughed, but the sound was hollow. "I'm actually a bit jealous of that."

"You two are going to work out eventually." I assured.

"That's what I keep hoping," she smiled wryly. "That one of these days we'll grow up and learn how to overcome our incredibly traumatic family circumstances."

We walked for another mile, and as we stepped out of the park, my feet began to pull me toward the mall. I followed them.

We chatted until we reached the Smithsonian Metro station, where I'd met Zach five years ago.

"Well, Cam, this is my stop," Macey said, pulling me in for a hug.

"Mine too," I mumbled.

Macey laughed, for real. "That is so incredibly, embarrassingly cheesy," she teased. "But I guess it kind of is."

"Thanks for catching up," I said.

"Take care of yourself, Cammie," she ordered, studying me. "Or we'll have to send Liz next time, and nobody wants that."

I laughed, as I imagined Liz on a "feel-better mission" armed with junk food and movies and "fun" trips to local attractions. Macey was right, it was a bit terrifying.

I watched Macey disappear into the Metro. Then I watched the sun set over the mall.

And as the darkness fell, I wandered home to my apartment. I slipped on one of Zach's shirts. And for the first time in months, I actually slept.

* * *

 **Hope you all enjoyed the latest installment. Just two more chapters left, next Sunday. I so enjoy writing for you, and reading your reviews, and I'm already thinking about what I want to work on next. Thanks for joining me :).**


	20. Chapter 20

It had taken so much longer than he'd planned, but finally, finally, Zach was on a helicopter flying back to DC. Back to Cammie. Back home.

There had been so many times in the last few months when Zach was sure he would never see this day.

There'd been a moment in Taiwan, after Zach began running the Eastern hemisphere distribution flights, when he was sure he'd been found out. When his Air Force Academy drop-out story almost didn't "fly." But he had sold it. Zach was a military-school brat through and through, and anyone who'd spent any time with him would have noticed.

There'd been a moment in LA as well, just last week, when Zach was sure the limousine driver the Doctors had selected through another criminal contact had made him. The driver had taken an unexpected detour over the Bay Bridge, and Zach had been certain he was about to meet an untimely end at the bottom of it.

Zach had lured the Doctors onto American Soil by botching his last handoff in Beijing. He'd made it clear he wasn't capable of handling the Eastern hemisphere distribution, and a new manager would be needed. Zach had handpicked an impressive Blackthorne colleague and convinced the Doctors to meet with him in Houston.

It was a gamble, and Zach knew it. Zach's classmate was a lone wolf, a gun for hire. He could easily blow Zach's cover instead of waiting for the DEA to pay him off. Or he could join the Doctors for real, and Zach would instantly become an unnecessary liability. Just another person who knew too much to be left alive.

But the risk had played out in his favor, and after two days debriefing the last six months in the CIA's Colorado field office with his father, Zach was finally on a chopper home.

Even though he'd been awake for almost 29 hours, he couldn't sleep. He could only count the seconds until they would land in DC. If Zach was honest with himself, he hadn't really slept in weeks. Not since that night, when he crossed the line he'd sworn so long ago that he'd never cross again.

When Zach stepped off the chopper and onto Andrews Air Force Base, his mind was clearer than it had been in a long time.

Zach strolled silently through the base, turning down his CIA driver in favor of a taxi cab. The cab dropped him at a hotel 3 miles from his apartment.

Zach ran the fastest three miles of his life.

When he finally disabled the motion sensors, activated the hidden fingerprint reader in the door jamb, and slipped inside, the apartment was dark. And quiet. Far too quiet.

It was 2:35am. The Cammie Zach knew would be sipping decaffeinated tea, reading an embarrassingly low quality novel, or caught in the throes of a nightmare at this time. She must be away on a mission for the apartment to be this quiet. That was just his luck, Zach thought bitterly.

Except that she wasn't. She was peacefully asleep. Zach couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her this quiet.

Zach settled himself silently on the edge of their bed. He couldn't possibly interrupt this moment. He would wait for her to stir, to start screaming, and then he would wake her.

But she didn't, and Zach grew impatient. With every passing moment, he ached to touch her, to hold her, to hear her voice.

He prayed he hadn't ruined the magic between them. He prayed Cammie could forgive his cowardice. It wasn't that he didn't love her. It was that he loved her far too much. He hoped she would understand.

And he would never run again. If he hadn't learned anything else in the last six months, he'd at least learned that. No matter how much it hurt to see Cammie in danger, not knowing how she was, or where she was, not seeing, or touching, or speaking with her for six months had been unbearable. Worse than any torture Zach had ever endured.

Zach studied Cammie. It was time. He couldn't possibly wait any longer.

"Cammie." He whispered.

"Cam." No response.

"Gallagher Girl, wake up."

Zach knew touching her would get a bad reaction, but he did it anyway. There was the sting of pain, and Zach was on his back with her elbow in his diaphragm so fast that he couldn't really be sure how he had gotten there.

And then he was staring into his favorite eyes in the whole world.


	21. Chapter 21

I could feel the heat of the flames as I ran. I could hear Zach's voice echoing in my ears.

"Run," he ordered, urgently, "run, and don't look back."

I couldn't breathe. The smoke filled my nose, and my lungs, and seemed to drag me down with every stride. It took all of my strength to press onward. But press on must. It was the only way out. Zach had spent his dying breaths telling me I had to live.

So I had to _live_.

When I saw Catherine in the distance, I redoubled my efforts, and threw the whole weight of my body into her.

But she just cackled, immovable as ever, while I crumpled to the ground.

You couldn't change the past. Obviously I knew that. But you couldn't let yourself be haunted by it either. At least that's what the CIA's psychiatrist had told me two months ago. You had to fight back.

So now, when I dreamt of the tombs, I tried to do what I should have done five years ago. I tried to kill Catherine.

As I fell to the ground, the blackness closed in around me, much as it had in real life. And then, almost always, I woke to the blackness of my apartment.

 _Our apartment_ , I had to remind myself. Although I had been alone so long now that Zach's presence had almost entirely faded. There was barely a corner I hadn't cluttered, a bit of closet I hadn't commandeered, an item of food I hadn't purchased. It was almost as if Zach had never been there at all.

But he had been. The ache in my heart was proof that he had been.

Tonight, however, the darkness didn't give way. It held me, stilled me, until I settled into a peaceful, empty sleep.

Somewhere in the void, I heard Zach's voice, calling me.

"Cammie."

"Cam."

"Gallagher Girl, wake up."

A hand touched my shoulder, and my reflexes took hold. I grabbed the arm and threw my head into my attackers' shoulder, knocking him off balance just enough to fling him onto his back and slam my elbow into his diaphragm.

There was an audible "oof" followed by an offensive word, that I actually took as a compliment, given the circumstances.

My eyes snapped open, my body instantly ready to continue the fight.

No, I was still asleep. I shook my head to jar myself back to reality, but he didn't move.

I held him pinned as I reached for the lamp. I was wrong. Just like Maracaibo, I was wrong.

"You're not asleep," he said softly, as the light flicked on.

"Cammie, hey, it's me, _you're not asleep_."

I stared at him in silence, taking in the unruly mop of hair that almost hid his alarmingly green eyes, and the dark shadows under them. The defeated slant of his shoulders. The slight waver to his voice.

I hadn't seen Zach like this in a long time. Something had happened. Something terrible.

"Cam," he whispered, misreading my concern for disbelief. "If I were a dream, would I do this?"

Zach slowly pushed my elbow out of his stomach, in a gentle, methodical way that told me he had expected me to fight back. With the same methodical motion, he took my face gingerly in his hands and pressed his lips to mine.

I don't know how to describe the burning. It was almost as if I'd walked into the warm, cozy hearth of my grandparents' great room and taken up residence among the logs. The flames rushed through my veins. My skin tingled. My heart raced. My lips moved with Zach's in perfect rhythm, as if we'd never been apart.

When he pulled away, I followed his heat. He would never leave me again. I would make sure of it.

He pulled me into him, and wrapped his arms around me. And I knew no one would ever get to me unless they came through him.

Zach buried his face in my hair. A tear slid down my cheek, and I couldn't be sure which of our faces it had fallen from.

"You were gone so long," I whispered against his skin, my voice cracking.

"Never again," and there was such fierceness in his tone that I didn't doubt him for a moment. "No matter how they beg."

I tried to keep him from noticing the way my breath hitched. Because no one had begged Zach to go on this mission. Zach had run, and we both knew it.

"I'm sorry we fought," I said, carefully choosing my words. "I've wanted to say that for so long."

For a moment, I wasn't sure Zach had heard. His lips traveled over my shoulders, his hands buried themselves in my hair.

"It's forgotten," he mumbled quietly, with a slight shake of his head. And he kissed me with such intensity that there was no room to even question whether things could be made right between us.

At least not until hours later, when the flames subsided to glowing embers, and we lay wrapped up in each other's arms, caught in the smell of each other's skin.

"I'm so sorry," Zach whispered, his breath tickling the back of my neck. "I made so many mistakes." He sighed heavily, and his fingers traced the curve of my waist. "Can you forgive me, Cam?" He asked gently, and I could tell from his tone, that he wasn't entirely sure that I would.

I rolled to face him, and started to answer, but he didn't let me.

"I ran," he admitted, his eyes pleading. "You see Cam, I've loved you for so long, that I don't always see you clearly. Sometimes, when I look at you, I still see the girl who came back. With your tattered black hair and your," he took a sharp breath, involuntarily. He stroked my forearms, unable to say the words. "But you haven't been that girl in a long, long time."

"I almost died." The words fell from my lips, and I watched as Zach processed them. I hadn't meant to tell him. But here, in the safety of our bed, the truth slipped out. "I'm still that girl," I admitted. "And three weeks ago, I almost died."

"I killed someone." Zach's shoulders seemed to collapse as he spoke, as if the weight he'd been carrying had suddenly grown too heavy to bear any longer. And suddenly I understood the dark circles, the furrowed brow, the thinly veiled self-loathing that hovered in his eyes.

I pulled Zach as close to me as possible, letting his tears wet my skin, wishing I could soak up his pain like a sponge, and bear it's weight myself.

"One mistake doesn't make you a bad spy," Zach whispered into my neck. "You've grown up, Gallagher Girl. You're brilliant and talented and capable. And Cam..." he broke off, and swallowed hard, before pulling away to meet my eyes. "You deserve so much more than I can give you. You deserve a better man than I will ever be."

Zach turned away, and his voice cracked a bit. "I'm still a monster," he whispered. "I'll probably always be a monster."

"You're not," I soothed.

There was a heavy silence in the air, as Zach stared silently off at the ceiling. After all these years, I knew better than to think that I could reach him. Zach had re-opened his deepest wound, and I knew it would take time for him to heal.

"I need you." He said finally. "You can always see the good in me, even when there isn't any."

"That's not true. No matter what happened out there, that's not true." He didn't argue, but I also knew he didn't believe me.

"We need each other." I continued. "We're a team, Zach. We always have been, and we always will be."

"Just not in the field," he said firmly. "You were right, Cam. I knew you were right. That's why I had to leave. I thought it would be better if I wasn't around to see you get hurt."

I raised my eyebrows, a silent question.

"And I was very, very wrong."

"I can't promise to be safe," I admitted. "And I can't promise to come home. You know that. And neither can you."

Zach sighed.

"I know," he admitted. "I hate it, but I know."

"I hate it too," I said quietly. "But we can promise to be vigilant," I offered.

"And we can promise not to run," Zach whispered back. "Do you think that could ever be enough?"

I nodded, and I pulled away so that he had to meet my eyes. "You have to promise too. You can never run again, Zach."

"That goes for you too, Gallagher Girl," he teased. But his eyes grew serious, and he said firmly, "I swear I won't." Zach smiled. "Everything I'll ever need is right here."

I buried my head in his chest. And curled tightly in Zach's arms, I drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow was a new day. And I had no way of knowing what it would bring. But whatever came, I knew that we would face it together.

* * *

 **That's a wrap, folks! I hope you enjoyed this latest story. I so enjoyed writing it for you. Thanks for sticking around for the ending! If you enjoyed this, and haven't already, check out my other Fanfic, Til Death Do Us Part for the "next chapter" of sorts in the Zammie story. I'm not sure what I'll be working on next, but hope to see you around this place again soon. Thanks again for reading and reviewing. I've had a blast.**


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